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Mars Base

Planck's most detailed map ever reveals an almost perfect Universe - 0 views

phys.org/...3-planck-reveals-universe.html

scibyte87 PlanckConstant

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background
  • the relic radiation from the Big Bang
  • was released
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • revealing the existence of features that challenge the foundations of our current understanding of the Universe
  • The image is based on the initial 15.5 months of data from Planck and is the mission's first all-sky picture of the oldest light in our Universe, imprinted on the sky when it was just 380 000 years old.
  • At that time, the young Universe was filled with a hot dense soup of interacting protons, electrons and photons at about 2700ÂșC
  • protons and electrons joined to form hydrogen atoms, the light was set free
  • As the Universe has expanded, this light today has been stretched out to microwave wavelengths, equivalent to a temperature of just 2.7 degrees above absolute zero.
  • that correspond to regions of slightly different densities at very early times, representing the seeds of all future structure: the stars and galaxies of today
  • According to the standard model of cosmology, the fluctuations arose immediately after the Big Bang and were stretched to cosmologically large scales during a brief period of accelerated expansion known as inflation.
  • Planck was designed to map these fluctuations across the whole sky with greater resolution and sensitivity than ever before
  • By analysing the nature and distribution of the seeds in Planck's CMB image, we can determine the composition and evolution of the Universe from its birth to the present day
  • because precision of Planck's map is so high, it also made it possible to reveal some peculiar unexplained features that may well require new physics to be understood
  • Since the release of Planck's first all-sky image in 2010, we have been carefully extracting and analysing all of the foreground emissions that lie between us and the Universe's first light
  • revealing the cosmic microwave background in the greatest detail yet
  • One of the most surprising findings is that the fluctuations in the CMB temperatures at large angular scales do not match those predicted by the standard model
  • their signals are not as strong as expected from the smaller scale structure
  • Another is an asymmetry in the average temperatures on opposite hemispheres of the sky
  • This runs counter to the prediction made by the standard model that the Universe should be broadly similar in any direction we look
  • a cold spot extends over a patch of sky that is much larger than expected.
  • The asymmetry and the cold spot had already been hinted at with Planck's predecessor
  • NASA's WMAP mission, but were largely ignored because of lingering doubts about their cosmic origin
  • One way to explain the anomalies is to propose that the Universe is in fact not the same in all directions on a larger scale than we can observe
  • In this scenario, the light rays from the CMB may have taken a more complicated route through the Universe than previously understood, resulting in some of the unusual patterns observed today.
  • ultimate goal would be to construct a new model that predicts the anomalies and links them together
  • we don't know whether this is possible and what type of new physics might be needed
  • the Planck data conform spectacularly well to the expectations of a rather simple model of the Universe, allowing scientists to extract the most refined values yet for its ingredients
  • dark energy, a mysterious force thought to be responsible for accelerating the expansion of the Universe, accounts for less than previously thought.
  • Normal matter that makes up stars and galaxies contributes just 4.9% of the mass/energy density of the Universe
  • Dark matter, which has thus far only been detected indirectly by its gravitational influence, makes up 26.8%, nearly a fifth more than the previous estimate.
  • Planck data also set a new value for the rate at which the Universe is expanding today, known as the Hubble constant
  • At 67.15 kilometres per second per megaparsec, this is significantly less than the current standard value in astronomy
  • The data imply that the age of the Universe is 13.82 billion years.
  • We see an almost perfect fit to the standard model of cosmology, but with intriguing features that force us to rethink some of our basic assumptions
Mars Base

Apollo Rocket Engines Recovered from Atlantic Ocean Floor - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ered-from-atlantic-ocean-floor

scibyte87 apollo

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Last year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos announced that he had located some of the Apollo F-1 rocket engines and planned to recover them
  • his Bezos Expedition team were successful in recovering engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the Moon and have now brought “a couple of your F-1s home,”
  • There is no indication so far from Bezos of which flight these engines were from
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Last year
  • he said they had found the engines from Apollo 11, but it may be been difficult to determine exactly which flight the ones found were from
  • NASA launched 65 F-1 engines, five per flight, on 13 Saturn V boosters between 1967 and 1973
  • Supposedly there would be serial numbers to make the identification of which flight these engines were from
  • still on the ship, so perhaps the identification will come later
  • Each of the engines stands 19 feet tall by 12 feet wide and weigh over 18,000 pounds.
  • Five F-1 engines were used in the 138-foot-tall S-IC, or first stage, of each Saturn V
  • three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface
  • photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces
Mars Base

Crow-Size Pterosaur Named After 9-Year-Old Fossil Hunter -- National Geographic - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...aurs-dinosaurs-science-animals

scibyte87 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • A new species of crow-size pterosaur has been named in honor of the nine-year-old fossil hunter who discovered it
  • While exploring the U.K.'s Isle of Wight (map) in 2008, the then-five-year-old Morris came across blackened "bones sticking out of the sand
  • The Morris family brought the fossil to paleontologist Martin Simpson at the University of Southampton, who, with the help of colleagues, identified it as a new species
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • In pterosaurs, certain parts of the skeleton, especially the skull and the pelvis, are really distinct between different [species
  • The newfound creature also belonged to a group of pterosaurs called the azhdarchoids
  • All are from the Cretaceous, all are toothless, and many—perhaps all—were especially well adapted for life in terrestrial environments like woodlands, tropical forests, and floodplains
  • From the size of the pelvis
  • estimate
  • had a wingspan of about 2.5 feet (75 centimeters) and was just over a foot (35 centimeters) from snout to tail, making it about the size of a gull or large crow.
  • also inspired study co-author Simpson to write a children's book entitled Daisy and the Isle of Wight Dragon.
  • V. daisymorrisae lived in 145 to 65 million years ago
  • it probably had a head crest, was a reasonably good walker and runner on the ground, and could expertly fly through dense forests.
Mars Base

Planck's Cosmic Map Reveals Universe Older, Expanding More Slowly - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...se-older-expanding-more-slowly

scibyte87 PlanckConstant

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • show the same 10-square-degree patch of sky as seen by NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE, NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, and Planck.
  • Planck has a resolution about 2.5 times greater than WMAP
  • This graphic
Mars Base

Universe is a teeny bit older than thought | Matter & Energy | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...a_teeny_bit_older_than_thought

scibyte87 PlanckConstant

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Launched by the European Space Agency in 2009, the Planck satellite scans the sky for the cosmic microwave background, radiation that dates back to about 380,000 years after the Big Bang
  • Planck is essentially a supersensitive thermometer that can probe the temperature of this radiation to millionths of a degree
  • The red spots in the map are about 1 part in 100,000 hotter than the average temperature, while the blue spots are slightly colder
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the theory of inflation, which posits that, around 10-30 seconds after the Big Bang, the universe briefly expanded faster than the speed of light.
  • Researchers who analyzed the telescope’s data announced that the universe is about 13.81 billion years old, or 80 million years older than previously thought
  • The telescope is still making observations, and in about a year researchers will add
  • data t
Mars Base

Google Lat Long: Notes from the top of the world: A behind-the-scenes look at our lates... - 0 views

google-latlong.blogspot.com/...op-of-world-behind-scenes.html

scibyte87 GoogleMap

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • highest altitude
  • reached was 18,192 feet
  • higher than anywhere in the contiguous U.S
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • hiked more than 70 miles (or 50 hours) during the trip
  • captured a collection of panoramas at key camps and other interesting stops along the way
Mars Base

F-1 Engine Recovery | Bezos Expeditions - 0 views

www.bezosexpeditions.com/updates.html

scibyte87 apollo

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • The Remotely Operated Vehicles worked at a depth of more than 14,000 feet, tethered to our ship with fiber optics for data and electric cables transmitting power at more than 4,000 volts
  • bringing home enough major components to fashion displays of two flown F-1 engines
  • upcoming restoration will stabilize the hardware and prevent further corrosion
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 5,000 mile per hour re-entry and subsequent impact with the ocean surface
Mars Base

Google Maps climbs Everest - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...oogle-Maps-climbs-Everest.html

scibyte87 GoogleMap

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Google did not get to Everest's peak, which is at an altitude of 29,035 feet, or 8,850 meters, but the maps now include 360-degree views of four of the seven summits
  • highest peaks on all seven continents
  • lightweight camera and tripod with a fish-eye lens and in 2011, the spent 12 days
Mars Base

NASA Moon Probes' Impact Craters Spotted from Space | Grail Mission | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-grail-moon-probes-graves.html

scibyte87 Grail

shared by Mars Base on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped a series of photographs of the two 16.5-foot-wide (5 meters) craters, which mark where the space agency's twin Grail probes ended their gravity-mapping mission, and their operational lives, on Dec. 17.
  • It's a bit of a surprise that the LROC team was able to find the craters at all
  • the craters are small, nondescript features on a body riddled with impact scars
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The two Grail spacecraft — known as Ebb and Flow — slammed into a mountain near the lunar north pole at 3,771 mph (6,070 km/h), striking the surface about 20 seconds apart.
  • The Grail craters first showed up in LROC photos from January, but images taken on Feb. 28 show them in much greater detail
  • used these later photos to produce a topographic map of the impact zone
  • This map revealed that the two craters are separated by about 7,250 feet (2,210 m) in straight-line distance and 985 feet (300 m) in altitude
  • the crashes ejected material that appears darker than the surrounding lunar dirt.
  • these may be dark due to spacecraft material being mixed with the ejecta
  • may be residual fuel left in the probes' lines, or bits of their carbon-fiber bodies
  • LRO didn't get any images of the actual crashes, which occurred in the dark.
  • ultraviolet imaging spectrograph did see emissions from mercury and atomic hydrogen in the ejected plumes when they rose high enough to reach sunlight
  • The analysis of the Grail impact plumes is ongoing
  • The probes' measurements have allowed scientists to create the best-ever gravity map of any celestial body
  • And that map is getting better all the time, as researchers continue to analyze the data
  • The twin probes, which were each about the size of a washing machine, zipped around the moon at an average altitude of just 7 miles (11 km) in their final days
Mars Base

Google Maps Adds Views From Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, And More Famous Peaks | Popular S... - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...ntains-its-street-view-tourism

scibyte87 GoogleMap

shared by Mars Base on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Google Maps Adds Views From Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, And More Famous Peaks
  • You can now scale Mt. Everest, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Russia's Mt. Elbrus and Argentina's Aconcagua
  • Unlike the Grand Canyon views, shot with Google's new Trekker backpack camera
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • mountain views were shot with a tripod and a digital camera with a fisheye lens
  • photos from the summits and some surrounding attractions and read more about the team behind the Everest trip on the Google Maps blog.
Mars Base

Curiosity Demonstrates New Capability to Scan 360 Degrees for Life Giving Water - and i... - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...giving-water-and-is-widespread

scibyte87 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 19 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • The science team guiding NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover have demonstrated a new capability that significantly enhances the robots capability to scan her surroundings for signs of life giving water
  • from a distance
  • the rover appears to have found that evidence for water at the Gale Crater landing site is also more widespread than prior indications.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Mastcam cameras
  • can now also be used as a mineral-detecting and hydration-detecting tool to search 360 degrees around every spot she explores for the ingredients required for habitability and precursors to life
  • Some iron-bearing rocks and minerals can be detected and mapped using the Mastcam’s near-infrared filters
  • scientists used the filter wheels on the Mastcam cameras to run an experiment by taking measurements in different wavelength’s
  • a rock target called ‘Knorr’ in the Yellowknife Bay area were Curiosity is now exploring
  • Researchers found that near-infrared wavelengths on Mastcam can be used as a new analytical technique to detect the presence of some but not all types of hydrated minerals
  • The first use of the Mastcam 34 mm camera to find water was at the rock target called “Knorr.”
  • see elevated hydration signals in the narrow veins that cut many of the rocks in this area
  • These bright veins contain hydrated minerals that are different from the clay minerals in the surrounding rock matrix
  • Mastcam thus serves as an early detective for water without having to drive up to every spot of interest, saving precious time and effort
  • But Mastcam has some limits
  • It is not sensitive to the hydrated phyllosilicates found in the drilling sample at John Klein
  • Mastcam can use the hydration mapping technique to look for targets related to water that correspond to hydrated minerals
  • Yellowknife Bay basin possesses a significant amount of phyllosilicate clay minerals; indicating an environment where Martian microbes could once have thrived in the distant past.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Images - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...images

scibyte87 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 25 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • left image is the raw, unprocessed color, as it is received directly from Mars
  • center rendering was produced after calibration of the image to show an estimate of "natural" color, or approximately what the colors would look like if we were to view the scene ourselves on Mars
  • right image shows the result of then applying a processing method called white-balancing, which shows an estimate of the colors of the terrain as if illuminated under Earth-like, rather than Martian, lighting
Mars Base

Heart repair breakthroughs replace surgeon's knife - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...eakthroughs-surgeon-knife.html

scibyte87 scibyte88 heart

shared by Mars Base on 25 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Many problems that once required sawing through the breastbone and opening up the chest for open heart surgery now can be treated
  • through a tube
  • These minimal procedures used to be done just to unclog arteries and correct less common heart rhythm problems
  • ...42 more annotations...
  • Now some patients are getting such repairs for valves, irregular heartbeats, holes in the heart and other defects—without major surgery
  • Doctors even are testing ways to treat high blood pressure with some of these new approaches
  • Instead of opening the chest, we're able to put catheters in through the leg, sometimes through the arm
  • Many patients after having this kind of procedure in a day or two can go home
  • It may lead to cheaper treatment, although the initial cost of the novel devices often offsets the savings from shorter hospital stays
  • Not everyone can have catheter treatment, and some promising devices have hit snags in testing
  • Others on the market now are so new that it will take several years to see if their results last as long as the benefits from surgery do.
  • these procedures have allowed many people too old or frail for an operation to get help for problems that otherwise would likely kill them
  • You can do these on 90-year-old patients
  • also offer an option for people who cannot tolerate long-term use of blood thinners or other drugs to manage their conditions
  • Heart valves
  • Millions of people have leaky heart valves. Each year, more than 100,000 people in the United States alone have surgery for them
  • Without a valve replacement operation, half of these patients die within two years, yet many are too weak to have one.
  • just over a year ago,
  • Edwards Lifesciences Corp. won approval to sell an artificial aortic valve flexible and small enough to fit into a catheter and be wedged inside the bad one
  • At first it was just for inoperable patients. Last fall, use was expanded to include people able to have surgery but at high risk of complications.
  • Catheter-based treatments for other valves also are in testing. One for the mitral valve
  • mixed review by federal Food and Drug Administration advisers this week; whether it will win FDA approval is unclear. It is already sold in Europe
  • Heart rhythm problems
  • Catheters can contain tools to vaporize or "ablate" bits of heart tissue that cause abnormal signals that control the heartbeat
  • Now catheter ablation is being used for the most common rhythm problem—atrial fibrillation, which plagues about 3 million Americans and 15 million people worldwide.
  • Ablation addresses the underlying rhythm problem. To address the stroke risk from pooled blood, several novel devices aim to plug or seal off the pouch
  • The upper chambers of the heart quiver or beat too fast or too slow. That lets blood pool in a small pouch off one of these chambers
  • Clots can form in the pouch and travel to the brain, causing a stroke
  • a tiny lasso to cinch the pouch shut. It uses two catheters that act like chopsticks. One goes through a blood vessel and into the pouch to help guide placement of the device, which is contained in a second catheter poked under the ribs to the outside of the heart. A loop is released to circle the top of the pouch where it meets the heart, sealing off the pouch.
  • A different kind of device
  • sold in Europe and parts of Asia, but is pending before the FDA in the U.S
  • like a tiny umbrella pushed through a vein and then opened inside the heart to plug the troublesome pouch.
  • Early results from a pivotal study released by the company suggested it would miss a key goal, making its future in the U.S. uncertain.
  • Heart defects
  • St. Jude Medical Inc.'s Amplatzer is a fabric-mesh patch threaded through catheters to plug the hole
  • In two new studies, the device did not meet the main goal of lowering the risk of repeat strokes in people who had already suffered one, but some doctors were encouraged by other results
  • ĐĄlogged arteries
  • The original catheter-based treatment—balloon angioplasty—is still used hundreds of thousands of times each year in the U.S. alone
  • A Japanese company, Terumo Corp., is one of the leaders of a new way to do it that is easier on patients—through a catheter in the arm rather than the groin
  • Newer stents that prop arteries open and then dissolve over time, aimed at reducing the risk of blood clots, also are in late-stage testing
  • High blood pressure
  • About
  • 1 billion people worldwide have high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks
  • Researchers are testing a possible long-term fix for dangerously high pressure that can't be controlled with multiple medications.
  • uses a catheter and radio waves to zap nerves, located near the kidneys, which fuel high blood pressure
  • At least one device is approved in Europe and several companies are testing devices in the United States
Mars Base

Robot snake automatically wraps around an object when thrown (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...utomatically-thrown-video.html

scibyte87 robot

shared by Mars Base on 23 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Robot snakes have been developed in recent years to mimic the actions of their real life counterparts
  • researchers have developed such snakes that are able to travel over terrain in ways very similar to a real snake, and even to climb up objects such as a person's arm.
  • researchers have extended the capability of a robot snake to include wrapping and holding on to an object when thrown at it
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • researchers were able to give the snake such an ability by making use of accelerometers embedded in its body
  • It's able to detect the sudden stop that occurs when it strikes an object
  • taking advantage of programming that had already been done by the team to get it to wrap itself around the object that it had struck
  • there is a difference between wrapping and constricting
  • this robot snake does the former, but not the latter
  • it doesn't squeeze the target, it simply wraps itself around it to allow it to hold on
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