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Mars Base

Light From a 'SuperEarth' Detected for the First Time - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...th-detected-for-the-first-time

scibyte46 Spitzer exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • 55 Cancri
  • one of the first known stars to host an extrasolar planet
  • discovered via radial velocity measurements in 2004
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • astronomers were able to determine its mass and radius
  • Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system, when it saw the infrared light of a “hot Jupiter
  • NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes
  • using the same method
  • In this method, a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it. When the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself
  • information reveals the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components
  • other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.
  • about 8.57 Earth masses
  • radius is 1.63 times that of Earth
  • density is 10.9 ± 3.1 g cm-3 (the average density of Earth is 5.515 g cm-3),
  • Cancri e is tidally locked, so one side always faces the star
  • James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, likely will be able to learn even more about the planet’s composition
  • might be able to use a similar infrared method to Spitzer to search other potentially habitable planets for signs of molecules possibly related to life.
Mars Base

NASA to Reveal Vesta Discoveries by Dawn Asteroid Probe | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/discoveries-nasa-thursday.html

scibyte46 Asteroid Vesta dawn

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • NASA will showcase the latest discoveries from an asteroid probe orbiting the huge space rock Vesta on Thursday (May 10) in a press conference for reporters and the general public.
  • will present a new analysis of Vesta based on the latest observations from NASA's Dawn spacecraft
  • Dawn spacecraft launched in 2007 on a mission to visit two huge space rocks in the asteroid belt that orbits the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
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  • Dawn arrived in orbit around Vesta in July 2011
  • Vesta is the brightest asteroid in the solar system and second most massive object in the asteroid belt
  • Last month, NASA extended Dawn's stay at Vesta by an extra 40 days to give the spacecraft more time to study the asteroid
  • spacecraft has revealed that many new details about Vesta
  • it is rich in iron and magnesium
  • experiences chilly temperatures that range from minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) in the sunlight, to minus150 degrees F (minus 100 degrees C) in shadowed areas.
  • Scientists think Vesta is a 4.5 billion-year-old relic left over from the formation of the solar system
  • In August the probe will move on to the Texas-size Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt and a space rock so large it is considered a dwarf planet.
  • expected to arrive at Ceres in February 2015
Mars Base

Take a peek inside Curiosity's shell - 0 views

phys.org/...2-05-peek-curiosity-shell.html

scibyte46 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • Take a look around Curiosity’s cozy cabin!
  • didn’t get a window seat
  • the image above was taken by the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on April 20
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  • color image was planned by the MSL team, used to confirm that MAHLI is operating as it should
  • two green dots are reflections of the camera’s LED lights
  • rusty-orange out-of-focus parts are cables
  • silver thing is a bracket holding said cables.
Mars Base

This breathalyzer reveals signs of disease (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...zer-reveals-disease-video.html

scibyte46 breathalyzer diagnosis

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer, and when you blow into it, you get tested for a biomarker—a sign of disease
  • blow into a small valve attached to a box that is about half the size of your typical shoebox and weighs less than one pound
  • lights on top of the box will give you an instant readout
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • green light means you pass (and your bad breath is not indicative of an underlying disease; perhaps it’s just a result of the raw onions you ingested recently
  • red light means you might need to take a trip to the doctor’s office to check if something more serious is an issue.
  • sensor chip that
  • It's coated with tiny nanowires that look like microscopic spaghetti and are able to detect minute amounts of chemical compounds in the breath
  • nanowires enable the sensor to detect just a few molecules of the disease marker gas in a 'sea' of billions of molecules of other compounds that the breath consists of
  • can't buy this in the stores just yet
  • individual tests such as an acetone-detecting breathalyzer for monitoring diabetes and an ammonia-detecting breathalyzer to determine when to end a home-based hemodialysis treatment--are still being evaluated clinically
  • researchers envision developing the technology such that a number of these tests can be performed with a single device
  • you might be able to self-detect a whole range of diseases and disorders, including lung cancer, by just exhaling into a handheld breathalyzer.
  • nanowires can be rigged to detect infectious viruses and microbes like Salmonella, E. coli or even anthrax
Mars Base

Keeping immune cells alive and kicking - 0 views

phys.org/...012-05-immune-cells-alive.html

scibyte46 iss ImmuneSystem

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • Blood samples are frozen in the Space Station’s freezer for preservation before being returned to Earth for analysis
  • ROALD experiments are looking at why certain human cells replicate less in space
  • New results from research on the International Space Station are offering clues on why astronauts’ immune systems don’t work as well in space
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  • discovered that a particular enzyme, called 5-LOX, becomes more active in weightlessness.  
  • 5-LOX enzyme in part regulates the life expectancy of human cells
  • Blood samples from two healthy donors were sent to the orbital outpost
  • One set was exposed to weightlessness for two days, while the other was held in a small centrifuge to simulate Earth-like gravity
  • samples were then frozen and sent back to Earth for analysis.
  • weightless samples showed more 5-LOX activity than the centrifuged samples
  • centrifuged samples remained identical to the ground samples
  • We now have a target enzyme
  • e 5-LOX enzyme can be blocked with existing drugs, so using these findings to improve human health could be a close reality
  • Research will continue
  • follow-up experiment returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 30 crew last week
  • Scientists will look for other changes in the cells to understand the underlying mechanisms fully.
Mars Base

Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance - 0 views

phys.org/...cancer-fighting-substance.html

scibyte46 medical Cancer MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 10 May 12 - No Cached
  • Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance
  • Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
  • BBI derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
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  • the current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
  • soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
  • protein appeared to be active
  • tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish
Mars Base

Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 "Doomsday" Myth - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...-calendar-end-of-world-science

scibyte46 MayanCalender

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • last known largely unexcavated Maya megacity, archaeologists have uncovered the only known mural adorning an ancient Maya house
  • still vibrant scene of a king and his retinue
  • walls are rife with calculations that helped ancient scribes track vast amounts of time
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  • markings suggest dates thousands of years in the future
  • Perhaps most important, the otherwise humble chamber offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Maya society
  • in today's Xultún
  • just 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of jungle floor—it's a wonder Saturno's team found the artwork at all
  • At the Guatemalan site in 2010 the Boston University archaeologist and Ph.D. student Franco Rossi were inspecting a looters' tunnel, where an undergraduate student had noticed the faintest traces of paint on a thin stucco wall.
  • began cleaning off 1,200-year-old mud and suddenly a little more red paint appeared.
  • What the team found, after a full excavation in 2011, is likely the ancient workroom of a Maya scribe, a record-keeper of Xultún.
  • this was a workspace. People were seated on this bench" painting books that have long since disintegrated
  • The books would have been filled with elaborate calculations intended to predict the city's fortunes. The numbers on the wall were "fixed tabulations that they can then refer to—tables more or less like those in the back of your chemistry book," he added.
  • Undoubtedly this type of room exists at every Maya site in the Late Classic [period] and probably earlier, but it's our only example thus far."
  • Maya civilization spanned much of what are now Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico's Yucatán region. Around A.D. 900 the Classic Maya centers, including Xultún, collapsed after a series of droughts and perhaps political conflicts
  • The apparent desperation of those final years may have played out on the walls of the newly revealed room—the only major excavation so far in Xultún.
  • Despite past looting, the interior of the newfound room is nearly perfectly preserved.
  • Among the artworks on the three intact walls is a detailed orange painting of a man wearing white disks on his head and chest—likely the scribe himself
  • the researchers noticed several barely visible hieroglyphic texts, painted and etched along the east and north walls of the room
  • One is a lunar table, and the other is a "ring number"—something previously known only from much later Maya books, where it was used as part of a backward calculation in establishing a base date for planetary cycles
  • Nearby is a sequence of numbered intervals corresponding to key calendrical and planetary cycles.
  • The calculations include dates some 7,000 years in the future
  • The Maya at Xultún were likely less concerned with the end of the world than the end of their world
  • Sadly, we may never understand the full context of the workroom. Many of the glyphs are badly faded. Worse, the entire city of Xultún was looted clean during the 70s, leaving very little other writing or antiquities.
  • Because of this, and despite Xultún's obvious prominence in the Maya world, many archaeologists had written off the
Mars Base

Mayan Ruins Describe Dates Beyond 2012 'Doomsday' : Discovery News - 0 views

news.discovery.com/...yond-2012-doomsday-120511.html

scibyte46 MayanCalender

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • According to lead archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, the calendars mentioned are the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars.
  • So, the upshot is that this mind-blowing discovery exposes the Maya culture for what it really is: a complex, fascinating and forward-thinking ancient people, not the prophets of doom they've been portrayed by a few profit-seeking doomsayers.
Mars Base

Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...g-leads-archaeologists-to.html

scibyte46 MayanCalender

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • The team scanned all of the paintings and numbers, digitally stitched them together, and sent the images to epigrapher David Stuart of the University of Texas, Austin, who specializes in studying Maya inscriptions
  • analysis revealed that at least five of the numerical columns were topped by hieroglyphs that Maya scribes once used to record lunar data
  • Other numerical groupings in the recently discovered room appear to represent calendrical cycles involving the planets Venus and Mars
Mars Base

End of the World Averted: New Archeological Find Proves Mayan Calendar Doesn't End - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...oves-mayan-calendar-doesnt-end

SciByte46 MayanCalender

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • oldest known astronomical tables from the Maya
  • until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later.
Mars Base

Monster Sunspot Triggers Intense Solar Flares | Sun Storms | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ot-unleashes-solar-flares.html

scibyte46 sun solar flare

shared by Mars Base on 12 May 12 - No Cached
  • unspot AR 1476 was detected by space telescopes on May 5
  • 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) across
  • scientists predicted the sunspot would erupt with powerful solar flares
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  • So far, the sunspot has not triggered huge explosions from the sun, which scientists call coronal mass ejections.
  • Sunspot region AR 1476 was responsible for nearly all of the sun's storm activity
  • So far, the sunspot has fired off several flares, including a strong solar storm early Thursday (May 10).
  • These flares were all short-lived and there were no associated coronal mass ejections, so we do not expect any geomagnetic storms at Earth
  • It will take sunspot AR 1476 about two weeks to complete its trip across the face of the sun, as seen from Earth
Mars Base

Opportunity rover rolling again after fifth Mars winter - 0 views

phys.org/...rtunity-rover-mars-winter.html

scibyte46 mars opportunity rover

shared by Mars Base on 10 May 12 - No Cached
  • NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove about 12 feet (3.67 meters) on May 8, 2012, after spending 19 weeks working in one place while solar power was too low for driving during the Martian winter.
  • While at Greeley Haven for the past 19 weeks, Opportunity used the spectrometers and microscopic imager on its robotic arm to inspect more than a dozen targets within reach on the outcrop
  • Radio Doppler signals from the stationary rover during the winter months served an investigation of the interior of Mars by providing precise information about the planet's rotation
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  • Opportunity will look back with its panoramic camera to acquire multi-filter imaging of the surface targets it studied on Greeley Haven.
  • rover team will also check that the power supply still looks sufficient with the rover at a reduced tilt.
  • first drive since Dec. 26, 2011, took the rover about 12 feet (3.67 meters) northwest and downhill on Tuesday, May 8.
  • exploring the Meridiani region of Mars since landing in January 2004
  • arrived at the Cape York section of the rim of Endeavour Crater in August 2011
  • studying rock and soil targets on Cape York since then.
  • next goal is a few meters farther north on Cape York, at a bright-looking patch of what may be dust
  • haven't been able to see much dust in Meridiani
  • Endeavour Crater offers Opportunity a setting for plenty of productive
  • crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter
  • Unless wind removes some dust from Opportunity's solar array, allowing more sunlight to reach the solar cells, the rover will need to work during the next few weeks at locations with no southward slope
  • kept a northward tilt of about 15 degrees in recent months at its winter haven
  • favorably angled toward the winter sun low in the northern sky
Mars Base

Nevermind the Apocalypse: Earliest Mayan Calendar Found : Discovery News - 0 views

news.discovery.com/...discovery-doomsday-120511.html

scibyte46 MayanCalender

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • This monumental finding supports the fact that the Maya used cyclical calendars.
  • But it wasn't these mathematical notations that first caught the archeologists' eye
  • an archaeologist from Boston University, was mapping the ancient Maya city of Xultun in northeast Guatemala in 2010 when one of his undergraduate students peered into an old trench dug by looters and reported seeing traces of ancient paint.
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  • Paint doesn't preserve well in the rain forest climate of Guatemala, and Saturno figured that the faint red and black lines his student had found weren't going to yield much information
  • The discovery was "certainly nothing to write home about
  • felt he had a responsibility to excavate the room the looters had tried to reach, if only to be able to report the size of the structure along with the paint finding.
  • shocked to run into a brilliantly painted portrait: a Mayan king, sitting on his throne, wearing a red crown with blue feathers flowing out behind him.
  • Another figure peeks out from behind him
  • On an adjoining wall, three loincloth-clad figures sit, wearing feathered headdresses
  • ext to the king, a man painted in brilliant orange wearing jade bracelets reaches out with a stylus, likely identifying him as a scribe. He is labeled as "Younger Brother Obsidian," or perhaps "Junior Obsidian
  • small, 6-foot-by-6-foot room
  • calendar seemed to have been added after the murals were completed
  • almost as if an ancient scribe got sick of flipping through a document to find his timekeeping chart and decided to put it on the wall for at-a-glance reference
  • captioned "Older Brother Obsidian," or "Senior Obsidian,"
  • calendar also appears to note the cycles of Mars and Venus,
  • Most likely
  • the wall calendar and the Dresden Codex both arose from earlier books that long ago rotted away
  • The murals only survived, because, instead of collapsing the room, Mayan engineers filled it with rubble and then built on top of it.
  • This is clearly a space where someone important was living, this important household of the noble class, and here you also have a mathematician working in that space," Stuart said. "It's a great illustration of how closely those roles were connected in Mayan society
  • Unfortunately, the name of the king pictured in the mural room has been lost.
  • Xultun was first discovered in 1915, less than 0.1 percent has been explored
  • Looters damaged much of the ancient city in the 1970s
  • much of historical significance has been lost. But archaeologists still don't even know how far the boundaries of the town extend.
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