Ian O'Neill, Author at Universe Today

November 16, 2008April 26, 2016 by Ian O'Neill

NASA Aids California Wildfire Fight: An Opinion from the Smoke

Santa Ana wind-fuelled wildfires on October 13th in the San Fernando valley, north of Los Angeles. NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image (NASA)

[/caption]

This morning at 5:30am, I woke up to the smell of smoke. It’s one of those horrid, gut-wrenching feelings for anyone as your mind jumps from “did I leave the oven on?” to “oh no, it’s our turn.” The latter thought is probably one that everyone living near summer-dried woodland in California thinks on waking to the smell of smoke. And in the San Fernando Valley, we’ve had one or two scares this year.

The advance of the wildfires can be very fast. A view of the Santa Barbara fire (Tynan Daniels/CNN)

My wife and I live in Woodland Hills, about 20 minutes from Los Angeles, and before I moved to the US Deb warned me, “there might be a chance that we’ll get affected by a wildfire at the new house.” Coming from the UK, where the worst thing I’ve experienced was a flood (one of those car-floating floods the British countryside does so well), it was a little unnerving that I was moving to Southern California where I’d already experienced an earthquake and seen the damage caused by wildfires first-hand. It’s little wonder my family are constantly texting me asking “is everything OK?”

This time, it wasn’t “our turn” as we live on the south-west side of the valley. But late last night, hundreds of families weren’t so lucky and had to be evacuated from their homes as fires raged along the northern edge of the LA County line up to Santa Barbara…

It was a strange atmosphere in the valley today. A huge smokestack was growing about 12 miles north, and brown smoke filled the air, filtering out much of the sunlight. Walking into the garden with my coffee after the disturbed night sleep, I noticed a thin layer of soot over the patio and table. It was eerily quiet. Add this to the unseasonably warm weather we are having, there was a real sense the raging wildfire was a lot closer than it was.

Grid lock on the I-15 in San Bernardino, CA, during the October 2007 wildfires (Ian O'Neill)

This is fire season after all, when the strong offshore Santa Ana winds sweep across Southern California, fanning the flames of wildfires with the dry, warm air from the desert. This is the time when everyone is a little edgy when even a hint of smoke can be smelled in the air. Should fire take hold in the dry vegitation, firefighters have to throw everything they’ve got at the area affected, preventing damage to property and loss of life.

Last month was my last experience of a particularly vicious sequence of fires (again, causing huge problems for people in the north of the valley), and it looks like we have a few more days of trouble ahead of us. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an emergency declaration for the Sayre fire in Sylmar and as I write, mandatory evacuations have been placed on some locations north of LA, down to Orange County. There is also the threat of rolling blackouts as the blazes deprive some areas of electricity supplies. The problem is spreading across the region.

Use Google Maps to monitor the areas affected in the region »

This afternoon, although life continued as normally as it could though the unhealthy haze of smoke trapped in the valley basin, I saw two yellow firefighting aircraft landing in Van Nuys airport, before flying north to assist the thousands of brave firefighters on the ground. We can only imagine how extreme it must be over there.

NASA’s Autonomous Modular Scanner, onboard the Ikhana remotely-operated aircraft, images fires in Monterey County, CA on July 8th, 2008 (NASA/Google)

So, out of interest, I decided to do some research to see if the guys on the ground were getting any help from NASA (after all, the agency has a developed Earth observatory program), surely there is an “eye in the sky” that can help co-ordinate efforts down here?

In July, when California was suffering a state-wide wildfire emergency (is it me, or has the wildfire season lasted a lot longer this year?), NASA flew a robotic Ikhana aircraft across much of the state, charting over 300 fires that had broken out. The Ikhana was using an Autonomous Modular Scanner developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field to precisely measure temperature variations across the landscape from one-half degree to approximately 1,000 °F (537 °C). Areas currently burning and areas already burnt could then be identified. From this information, areas at risk could be quickly focused on, providing the firefighters with advanced warning before a fire takes hold.

“NASA’s emergency imaging gives us immediate information that we can use to manage fires, identify threats and deploy firefighting assets,” Governor Schwarzenegger said in July. “I thank NASA for providing us with this important firefighting tool.”

Whether or not the Ikhana aircraft is in the skies at the moment, it is unknown, but NASA has some other fire monitoring tricks a little higher in the sky.

From the MODIS Rapid Response System:

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flies onboard NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites as part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observing System. Both satellites orbit the Earth from pole to pole, seeing most of the globe every day. Onboard Terra, MODIS sees the Earth during the morning, while Aqua MODIS orbits the Earth in the afternoon.

True-color, photo-like imagery and false-color imagery are available within a few hours of being collected, making the system a valuable resource for organizations like the U.S. Forest Service and the international fire monitoring community, who use the images to track fires; the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, who monitors crops and growing conditions; and the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Air Force Weather Agency, who track dust and ash in the atmosphere. The science community also uses the system in projects like the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), which studies particles like smoke, pollution, or dust in the atmosphere.

Here’s to hoping NASA’s resources are being made available as widely as possible as LA County is now in a state of emergency. Our thoughts are with the people who have been injured, displaced and lost their homes, and to the Fire Service who are fighting day and night to bring these blazes under control.

I hope we hear better news in the morning…

Sources: Examiner, CBS2, CNN, NASA Fire and Smoke, BBC

November 13, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Man Facing 15 Year Jail Term for Ripping Off NASA, Endangering Shuttle Crew

The payload bay in shuttle Discovery (NASA)

[/caption]Oh dear. This is a tough lesson in “don’t sell NASA defective goods!”

It would appear that even NASA suffers from common infliction of shoddy contractors. Have you ever hired a plumber to find the leaking got worse? Have you hired a landscaping company who accidentally ripped up your prize hydrangeas? Have you purchased a passive flight releasable attachment mechanism interface plate only to find it had been damaged just before you attached it to your spaceship? Well, you’ve probably hired a dodgy plumber (possibly called Joe) or an unreliable gardener at some point, but these contractor problems pale into insignificance when compared with the life-or-death products sub-contractors produce for the US space agency.

It would appear that one such contractor, a 60 year old man from a space manufacturing company near Houston, attempted to pass a small, yet critical, part for NASA to fly on board Endeavour back in March this year. Unfortunately it was defective, possibly endangering the crew of the shuttle, and now he’s in for the high-jump after attempting a cover-up…

Richard Harmon from Cornerstone Machining Inc., near Houston, TX, was indicted yesterday by a grand jury, charged with fraud involving space vehicle parts and for making a false statement to NASA personnel. According to the charges, Harmon attempted to cover up damage to a part used to secure payloads inside the cargo bay of the shuttle. The damage occurred during the manufacturing process of the impressively named ‘passive flight releasable attachment mechanism interface plate,’ so to cover his mistake, Harmon is accused of welding the piece. His action had weakened the plate by up to 40%.

To make matters worse, Hermon is then accused of falsifying certificates stating that the product had been manufactured to the high standard required by NASA. The local US Attorney’s office said:

“The part was designed to secure cargo to the payload bay of the Endeavour during a flight to the International Space Station in March 2008. According to the indictment, the part, called a passive flight releasable attachment mechanism interface plate, was damaged during the manufacturing process. Harmon is alleged to have covered up the damage by causing it to be welded without informing Spacehab. Harmon is accused of delivering the part to Spacehab without disclosing the damage and falsely certifying the materials and processes used in machining the part complied with the requirements of applicable drawings.”

So what is this passive flight releasable attachment mechanism interface plate anyway? As a subcontractor to Spacehab (one of NASA’s suppliers), Cornerstone Machining Inc. prepares parts for use on missions such as space shuttle launches. The plate has an important function; it secures cargo in place during shuttle flights. Should this part fail, cargo may become loose inside the shuttle, endangering the crew, possibly having disastrous consequences for the mission. It was very fortunate that a pre-flight inspection turned up the fault.

“Had NASA not discovered the damage and used the damaged part as planned, it could have cracked open during flight, allowed cargo to come loose and, possibly, resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and personnel aboard,” said Tim Johnson, acting U.S. attorney in Houston.

Although Harmon has not pleaded to the charges, it’s not looking good. If he is convicted for fraud and for making false statements, ultimately putting the shuttle and US astronauts at risk, he faces a huge $500,000 fine and 15 years in jail.

So the moral of the story is: don’t mess with government agencies, let alone NASA…

Sources: Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Hair Balls

November 13, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Mars Rover Contact Reestablished, Spirit is Alive!

[/caption]Just when we were growing concerned that we might be losing two Mars surface missions within a week of each other, it turns out Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has survived its recent run-in with a Sun-dimming dust storm. On Tuesday, Nancy reported that Spirit had generated a record low power output from its solar panels, indicating the storm could drive Spirit’s energy levels to a point where an emergency fail-safe would switch the wheeled robot into a sunlight-deprived coma. Mission controllers sent Spirit commands to shut down non-essential instrumentation and instructed it not to communicate with NASA until today.

It would appear the rugged rover weathered the storm, expertly avoided a low-power fault and after four days of silence, sent the signal to NASA just as it was told to do. What an incredible little robot…

One might think that using solar panels to collect light on a planet where Sun-blocking dust is a problem is a bit silly. After all, it seems the Phoenix Mars lander succumbed to an arctic dust storm-induced drained battery, and Spirit was also hit by the solar panel’s old foe, a dust storm in Gusev Crater. But the key point that needs to be remembered in both cases is that these missions operated far beyond their expected lifespan. Phoenix was only supposed to be digging into the Martian dirt for three months (it lasted five months), plus the lander had a pretty tough deadline to keep to: the loss of sunlight and the freezing cold of the onset of the northern winter. Phoenix knew its fate, but it was able to push into the dark and cold for a little longer…

However, Spirit’s fate was far from sealed. Usually the rover enjoys a full sol of daylight, day and night as regular as clockwork. This is another piece of NASA engineering that has surpassed every expectation there is. I doubt that any scientist would have said that a mission designed to operate for only three months, would be roving the Martian surface nearly five years later! So already, every minute Spirit (and its twin rover Opportunity on the other side of the planet) spends transmitting data from the Red Planet is a huge bonus.

However, MER scientists were not going to let Spirit drop dead due to a flat battery. When NASA realised Spirit was beginning to suffer, drawing much less power than was needed from its solar panels, action was taken. Firstly, some heaters were switched off (one heater protects the thermal emission spectrometer instrument from the cold), and Spirit was put on a strict low-energy consumption routine. This routine meant commanding Spirit not to attempt to communicate with Earth for four days, which was probably the most nerve-racking measure that could be taken; once communication is severed, who’s to say we’d ever hear from the rover again?

Even though engineers had stopped Spirit from communicating, they continued to listen, just in case Spirit dropped into a low-energy shutdown mode. However, no signal was received until today (Thursday), right when Spirit was scheduled to phone home. At mission control at JPL in Pasadena, CA, NASA engineers shouted “she’s talking,” when they got word that Spirit had made contact.

Although her batteries are low, the rover is still working and talking with NASA. Let’s hope Spirit holds on for a while longer…

Source: AP

November 11, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Studying the Life Cycle of Butterflies and Spiders in Space

Will butterflies in space grow different to butterflies on Earth? (NASA, editing by Ian O'Neill)

[/caption]

Space biology experiments have just arrived in the classroom. With a focus on hundreds of K-12 students, a University of Colorado, Boulder payload will be launched on board Space Shuttle Endeavour on November 14th carrying spiders and butterfly larvae. The purpose? To provide an educational research tool for youngsters, helping to develop their interest in biology and space science. The butterfly larvae will be studied over their complete life cycle in space; from larvae to pupae to butterfly to egg. Web-building spiders will be studied to see how their behaviour alters when lacking gravity. Both sets of experiments will then be compared with control subjects on the ground… I wish I had the chance to do this kind of research when in school. I wish I had the chance to do this kind of research now!

“This program is an excellent example of using a national asset like the International Space Station to inspire K-12 students in science, technology, engineering and math,” said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck, principal investigator on the project. BioServe has flown two previous K-12 payloads as part of their CSI program on other shuttle flights to the International Space Station (ISS).

This particular experiment will study the activities and feeding habits of web-building spiders when in space, compared to spiders in the classroom. The hundreds of students from several locations in the US are involved in the project and will learn valuable research techniques along with boosting their interest in the sciences. After all, it isn’t every day you get a chance to carry out cutting-edge research on the world’s most extreme science laboratory!

The second set of experiments will be another space/Earth comparison, but this time a study of the full lifespan of painted lady butterflies. Four-day old pupae will be launched into space and watched via downlink video, still images and data from the ISS. Partners in the project include the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, CO and the Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Education Outeach.

BioServe is a non-profit, NASA funded organization hoping to include payloads on each of the remaining shuttle flights until retirement. “Between now and then, we are seeking sponsors for our educational payloads to enhance the learning opportunities for the K-12 community in Colorado and around the world,” added BioServe Payload Mission Manager Stefanie Countryman.

The full details on the project can be found on the University of Colorado pages.

This is where the strength of the International Space Station really comes into play. Real science being carried out by schools in the US to boost interest not only in space travel, but biology too. It’s a relief, I was getting a little tired hearing about busted toilets, interesting yet pointless boomerang “experiments”, more tests on sprouting seeds and the general discontent about the ISS being an anticlimax.

Let’s hope BioServe’s projects turn out well and all the students involved are inspired by the opportunities of space travel. Although I can’t help but feel sorry for the confused spiders and butterfly larvae when they realise there’s no “up” any more (I hope they don’t get space sick).

Source: UC Boulder

November 10, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Plutoid Eris is Changing… But We Don’t Know Why

The mysterious Eris and moons. Credit: NASA

[/caption]Eris, the largest dwarf planet beyond Neptune, is currently at its furthest point in its orbit from the Sun (an aphelion of nearly 100 AU). At this distance Eris doesn’t receive very much sunlight and any heating of the Plutoid will be at a minimum. However, two recent observations of Eris have shown a rapid change in the surface composition of the body. Spectroscopic analysis suggests the concentration of frozen nitrogen has dramatically altered during the two years Eris had been at this furthest point from the Sun. This is very unexpected, there should be very little change in nitrogen concentration at this point in its 557 year orbit.

So what is going on with this strange Plutoid? Is there a mystery mechanism affecting the surface conditions of this frozen moon? Could there be some cryovolcanic process erupting? Or is the explanation a little more mundane?

“We’re really scratching our heads,” says Stephen Tegler of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, author of the new Eris research (to be published in the journal Icarus). Tegler and his team analysed spectroscopic data from the 6.5 metre MMT observatory in Arizona and compared their 2007 results with a similar observation campaign by the 4.2 metre William Herschel Telescope in Spain two years earlier in 2005.

During that two year period, the scientists wouldn’t have thought there would be much difference in the two datasets. After all, the reflected sunlight off the surface of Eris should reveal a similar surface composition, right? Actually, the results couldn’t be more surprising. It would appear that within two years, having not changed its distance from the Sun significantly, the surface composition has changed a lot. Normally, this would be expected if a planetary body approaches or travels away from the Sun; the increase or decrease in solar energy would change the weather conditions on the surface. But this situation does not apply to Eris, there is little chance that the Sun could influence the weather on the surface of Eris to any degree (or, indeed, if Eris even has “weather”).

//neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/2003ub313.html'>NASA's Near Earth Program</a>

So what have the researchers deduced from the comparison of the 2005/2007 data? It would appear the spectroscopic methane lines have become diluted by an increased quantity of nitrogen. This means that the 2005 results showed a higher concentration of nitrogen near the surface, whereas the 2007 results show a higher concentration below the surface. For a dwarf planet to demonstrate a very fast change in surface composition appears to show some very dynamic process is at work.

So what could have caused this change? In the case of a dynamic weather process, “it’s very hard to imagine that something that dramatic would be happening on a relatively short time scale,” says Mike Brown of Caltech, a scientist not involved with the research. Another possibility is that 2003ub313 is a cryovolcanic body. Cryovolcanoes can erupt on icy moons or bodies in the Kuiper belt, but rather than spewing molten rock (magma), they erupt volatiles like ammonia, water or (in this case) nitrogen and methane. The ejected cryomagma then condenses into a solid, thus changing the surface composition of the icy body.

But it is not known whether Eris is warm enough for such a process to work. More information on trans-Neptunian object (TNO) cryovolcanism will be examined when NASA’s New Horizons mission reaches Eris’ smaller cousin Pluto in 2015. “If a shrimpy little body like Pluto can do it, Eris can too,” said co-author William Grundy of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

However, there is a possibility that the surface composition of Eris hasn’t changed at all. The 2005 and 2007 observations may have been analysing two different regions on the dwarf planet, thus the difference in surface composition (after all, the Plutoid has a rotation period of 26 hours, they would have almost definitely have seen different parts of Eris). So the next step for the researchers is to carry out an extended campaign throughout an “Eris day” to see if the surface composition is in fact patchy, which would be an interesting discovery in itself.

Publication: arXiv:0811.0825v1 [astro-ph]
Original source: New Scientist

November 8, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

First Images of Asteroid 2008 TC3 Impact Aftermath

The long-lasting persistent train after the impact of 2008 TC3 over the Sudanese skies (NASA)

[/caption]

A month after asteroid 2008 TC3 hit the Earth’s atmosphere, the first ground-based image of the event has surfaced on the Internet. Admittedly, it’s not the fireball everyone has been waiting to see, but it is visual evidence that something hit us above Sudan on October 7th. The image above was taken from a frame of video that was being recorded by Mr. Mohamed Elhassan Abdelatif Mahir in the dawn following the asteroid impact with the atmosphere. The smoky feature is the remnant of the fireball as the 3 meter-wide asteroid blasted through the upper atmosphere, eventually exploding. The long-lasting persistent train is seen hanging in the air, high altitude winds causing it to twist in the morning sunlight.

We may not have a dazzling fireball re-entry video of 2008 TC3, but this striking image provides the first ground-based evidence of the direct hit, and may help refine the search for any meteorites from the disintegrated asteroid…

Although details are sketchy, it would appear that a person on the ground observed the skies of Sudan shortly after 2008 TC3 exploded in the upper atmosphere. It is unclear whether the observer was part of a meteorite-hunting team, or a Sudanese resident videoing the scene, but it is very fortunate he captured this footage. Dr. Muawia H. Shaddad of the University of Karthoum communicated this single frame, and the picture is being showcased as the November 8th NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day.

It is currently the only ground-based evidence that something hit the Earth at the right time and right location as predicted by scientists using the Mount Lemmon telescope in Arizona as part of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey for near-Earth objects. However, as Nancy reported on October 13th, indirect support for an atmospheric fireball came from a webcam on a beach in Egypt. Also, at 02:43 UTC on that Tuesday morning, an infrasound array in Kenya detected an explosion in the atmosphere (with an energy equivalent of 1.1–2.1 kT of TNT). These observations were backed up by the European weather satellite METEOSAT-8, capturing the fireball from orbit. The pilot of a KLM airliner also witnessed a bright flash, 750 miles from the impact location.

This was the first time that an asteroid has been discovered before it hit the Earth, thereby proving an early-warning system for future asteroid impacts is possible. Although there are 5-10 space rock collision events per year, this is the first time we knew something about it before it happened. This is an amazing achievement as 2008 TC3 was only 3 meters in diameter.

To aid the search for any 2008 TC3 debris, SpaceWeather.com is hoping this image of the aftermath of the October 7th impact will jog any potential witness memories of the African skies a month ago:

Readers, were you in Sudan on Oct. 7th? Send your fireball reports and photos to meteor expert Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute. Your data could improve the chances of recovering meteorites.

Sources: SpaceWeather.com, Astroengine.com, NASA APOD

November 8, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Declaration of Human Rights to be Sent to Space Station

[/caption]On December 10th 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in a direct response to the atrocities committed during the Second World War. Since this landmark moment, the UDHR has been adopted and become the most translated document in history. The declaration consists of 30 articles (or 30 specific basic rights) and all have been worked into international law.

Now the one document that defines an individual’s rights on Earth will be launched into orbit and installed on the International Space Station (ISS), just in time for the 60th anniversary of the declaration’s signing…

All going well, November 14th will see the launch of STS-126, Space Shuttle Endeavour’s resupply mission to the ISS. The seven-member crew is set to deliver equipment to the ISS as well as repair the Solar Alpha Rotary Joints (SARJ). However, Endeavour will also have some extra special cargo on board.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the UDHR, a copy of the historic document will be hand-delivered and placed on board the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. The UDHR will remain on board the science laboratory permanently as a testament to the people on Earth and the astronauts in space who live by these rules.

On Friday, a copy of the declaration was handed to ESA’s Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, by Rama Yade (who is responsible of foreign affairs and human rights within the French government) at the Quai d’Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry. The UDHR has been sealed inside protective packaging to prevent damage from the ravages of space travel.

“The ESA Astronaut Corps welcomes this humanitarian initiative. In recognition of the fact that human beings are at times downtrodden, the Declaration can symbolically find its place ‘above’ all the peoples of the world,” said ESA astronaut Léopold Eyharts, who helped to install the Columbus module back in February.

Sources: ESA, Physorg.com

November 4, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Ion Shield for Interplanetary Spaceships Now a Reality

Bubble chamber image of charged particles being deflected by a magnetic field (CERN)

[/caption]British scientists invent “mini-magnetosphere” to protect astronauts during solar storms.

Space travel during a solar storm just became a little less risky. UK scientists working at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford and the universities of York and Strathclyde have tested a “mini-magnetosphere” enveloping a model spacecraft in the lab. It turns out that their prototype offers almost total protection against high energy solar particles. By mimicking the natural protective environment of the Earth, the researchers have scaled the protective magnetic bubble down into an energy efficient, yet powerful deflector shield.

This astounding achievement is a big step toward protecting sensitive electronics and the delicate human body against the radioactive effects of manned missions between the planets. It may sound like science fiction, but future astronauts may well shout the order to “RAISE SHIELDS!” if the Sun flares up during a 36 million mile journey to Mars…

A mission to Mars will benefit from a mini-magnetosphere (NASA)

On writing “Scientists Designing ‘Ion Shield’ To Protect Astronauts From Solar Wind” way back in January, I was a little dubious as to whether the preliminary results could be replicated on a full-scale spaceship. At the time, Dr Ruth Bamford (the lead researcher from Rutherford Appleton) had created a mini version of a magnetic shield that acted as a “bubble” in a stream of ions. As ions were charged, they could be deflected by a magnetic field, so the field acts as a barrier to deflect the paths of these ions around the void encapsulated by the magnetic field. All that had to be done was to scale the idea up a notch or two and then place a spaceship in the middle of the protected void. Solved!

Not so fast. The biggest drawback I could see back in January was the large amount of energy that would be required to power the system. After all, to generate a stable, spaceship-sized mini-magnetosphere would need a vast quantity of electricity (and be very bulky), or it would need to be highly efficient (and compact). As this is space travel we’re talking about, the scientists would need to look into the latter. The mini-magnetosphere would need to be a highly efficient device.

The USS Enterprise has many uses for its deflector shields, including repelling the Borg (Paramount Pictures)

Eleven months later and it looks like the British team have found their answer. In results just published in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, they have devised a system no bigger than a large desk that uses the same energy as an electric kettle. Two mini-magnetospheres will be contained within two mini satellites located outside the spaceship. Should there be an increase in solar wind flux, or an approaching cloud of energetic particles from a flare and/or coronal mass ejection (CME), the magnetospheres can be switched on and the solar ions are deflected away from the spacecraft.

“These initial experiments have shown promise and that it may be possible to shield astronauts from deadly space weather,” Dr Bamford said. After all, the effects of radiation poisoning can be devastating.

Prof. Bob Bingham, a theoretical physicist at the University of Strathclyde, gives a graphic account as to why this technology is important:

“Solar storms or winds are one of the greatest dangers of deep space travel. If you got hit by one not only would it take out the electronics of a ship but the astronauts would soon take on the appearance of an overcooked pizza. It would be a bit like being near the Hiroshima blast. Your skin would blister, hair and teeth fall out and before long your internal organs would fail. It is not a very nice way to go. This system creates a Magnetic Field Bubble that would deflect the dangerous radiation away from the spacecraft.” – Prof. Bob Bingham

Bingham added that the team was currently patenting the technology and hopes to have a working full size prototype within five years. So we might have to wait some time until we see some pictures of the system in action…

Source: Telegraph (UK)

November 3, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Forget the LHC, the Aging Tevatron May Have Uncovered Some New Physics

The Collider Detector at Fermilab may have found some unexpected particles (Fermilab)

[/caption]If you thought any quantum discoveries would have to wait until the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is switched back on in 2009, you’d be wrong. Just because the LHC represents the next stage in particle accelerator evolution does not mean the world’s established and long-running accelerator facilities have already closed shop and left town. It would appear that the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, has discovered…

…something.

Scientists at the Tevatron are reluctant to hail new results from the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) as a “new discovery” as they simply do not know what their results suggest. During collisions between protons and anti-protons, the CDF was monitoring the decay of bottom quarks and bottom anti-quarks into muons. However, CDF scientists uncovered something strange. Too many muons were being generated by the collisions, and muons were popping into existence outside the beam pipe…

The Tevatron was opened in 1983 and is currently the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. It is the only collider that can accelerate protons and anti-protons to 1 TeV energies, but it will be surpassed by the LHC when it finally goes into operation sometime early next year. Once the LHC goes online, the sub-atomic flame will be passed to the European accelerator and the Tevatron will be prepared for decommissioning some time in 2010. But before this powerful facility closes down, it will continue probing matter for a little while yet.

In recent proton collision experiments, scientists using the CDF started seeing something they couldn’t explain with our current understanding of modern physics.

The particle collisions occur inside the 1.5 cm-wide “beam pipe” that collimate the relativistic particle beams and focus them to a point for the collision to occur. After the collision, the resulting spray of particles are detected by the surrounding layers of electronics. However the CDF team detected too many muons being generated after the collision. Plus, muons were being generated inexplicably outside the beam pipe with no tracks detected in the innermost layers of CDF detectors.

CDF spokesperson Jacobo Konigsberg, is keen to emphasise that more investigations need to be done before an explanation can be arrived at. “We haven’t ruled out a mundane explanation for this, and I want to make that very clear,” he said.

However, theorists aren’t so reserved and are very excited about what this could mean to the Standard Model of sub-atomic particles. If the detection of these excess muons does prove to be correct, the “unknown” particle has a lifetime of 20 picoseconds and has the ability to travel 1 cm, through the side of the beam pipe, and then decay into muons.

Dan Hooper, another Fermilab scientist, points out that if this really is a previously unknown particle, it would be a huge discovery. “A centimetre is a long way for most kinds of particles to make it before decaying,” says . “It’s too early to say much about this. That being said, if it turns out that a new ‘long-lived’ particle exists, it would be a very big deal.”

Neal Weiner of New York University agrees with Hooper. “If this is right, it is just incredibly exciting,” he says. “It would be an indication of physics perhaps even more interesting than we have been guessing beforehand.”

Particle accelerators have a long history of producing unexpected results, perhaps this could be an indicator of a particle that has previously been overlooked, or more interestingly, not predicted. Naturally, scientists are quick to postulate that dark matter might be behind all this.

Weiner, with colleague Nima Arkani-Hamed, have formulated a model that predicts the existence of dark matter particles in the Universe. In their theory, dark matter particles interact among themselves via force-carrying particles of a mass of approximately 1 GeV. The CDF muons generated outside the beam pipe have been calculated to be produced by an “unknown” decaying parent particle with a mass of approximately 1 GeV.

The comparison is striking, but Weiner is quick to point out that more work is needed before the CDF results can be linked with dark matter. “We are trying to figure that out,” he said. “But I would be excited by the CDF data regardless.”

Perhaps we don’t have to wait for the LHC, some new physics may be uncovered before the brand new CERN accelerator is even repaired…

Source: New Scientist

November 3, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Can Cassini be Used to Detect Life on Enceladus?

Artist impression of the surface of Enceladus and the source of the plumes (BBC/Karl Kofoed)

[/caption]Having just returned the most detailed images yet of Saturn’s 500km-wide moon Enceladus, it is little wonder scientists are excited about this mysterious natural satellite. However, in new research recently published, the results aren’t related to the recent “skeet shot” Cassini carried out above the moon’s south pole (although there is some common ground). The paper’s origins started out in July 2005 when Enceladus’ plume of gas (containing organic compounds) was discovered fizzing from the moon’s surface, inside the “tiger stripes” just imaged by Cassini.

In some computer models, this plume is attributed to a sub-surface ocean. This possibility has led scientists to speculate that it might be an ideal environment for basic forms of life to thrive. What’s more, although the Cassini spacecraft isn’t equipped to directly search for life, it may be able to detect the signature of life…

Point of interest: The four long fissures straddle the south pole of Enceladus and run for more than 100 kilometres – the circular grid marks 60° South (NASA)

This new research published in the journal Astrobiology and led by Christopher McKay at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, suggests that the Cassini probe may have already collected data that could be analysed in the search for extraterrestrial life. By sifting through the data collected by the Saturn spacecraft after it passed though the plume of gas and ice particles emitted from Enceladus’ south pole, organic chemicals, such as methane, have been detected.

As Nancy wrote earlier today in relation to the search for life on Mars, methane is a key by-product from biological processes on Earth. It seems that Enceladus has a whole cocktail of the key components for life blasting into space.

“If you think about what you need for life, you need water, energy, organic material, and you need nitrogen, and they’re all coming out of the plume,” McKay said. “Here is a little world that seems to have it all.”

So what could be producing this possible biological signature? It seems possible that micro-organisms known as methanogens (as the name suggests, they produce methane as a gaseous by-product to their biological cycles) could be a possible explanation, but there must be the correct ratio of organic compounds (in favour of methane) present in the plume for this to be the case.

Life's smoking gun? The plume above Enceladus (NASA)

McKay’s team argues that for the organic compounds found in Enceladus’ plume to be of biological origin, there should be a much higher concentration of methane than any heavier organic compound (i.e. non-methane hydrocarbons). McKay’s paper suggests that the non-methane hydrocarbon to methane ratio needs to be lower than 0.001 for the methane to favour a biological origin.

This method was recently used on hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. A higher ratio of non-methane hydrocarbons were measured, indicating the gases emitted from the vents were non-biological in origin. This research suggests that Cassini’s Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) can be used in a similar way to see if the organic compounds detected in the Enceladus plume can be attributed to biological processes.

However, previous fly-bys of the plume suggest it is very comet-like (and therefore an ancient source of organic compounds), so more data needs to be collected and better models need to be devised.

This research is very encouraging for the future exploration of the Solar System’s gas giant moons, and it is hoped that more sensitive equipment can be put into Saturn orbit in the future to possibly refine the preliminary results from Cassini. Whether the organic compounds in Enceladus’ south polar plume can be attributed to biological processes, or not, will probably have to wait a while yet…

Source: New Scientist