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Mars Base

NASA Finds Ingredient for Plastic on Saturn's Moon Titan | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-titan-plastic-ingredient.html

scibyte105 ViewerFeedback titan

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • a chemical essential for the creation of plastic on Earth has been found in
  • Saturn's largest Titan
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, found that the atmosphere of Titan contains propylene
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • key ingredient of plastic containers, car bumpers and other everyday items on Earth
  • strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene
  • Scientists used Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument, which measures infrared light given off by Saturn and its moon, made the discovery
  • When Voyager 1 conducted the first close flyby of the moon in 1980, it recognized gasses in the moon's brown atmosphere as hydrocarbons.
  • measurement was very difficult to make because propylene's weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals
Mars Base

Supervolcanoes Rocked Early Mars - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...rs-super-volcano-space-ancient

scibyte105 ViewerFeedback Google+

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Massive "supervolcanoes" erupted across the northern face of Mars some 3.7 billion years ago, planetary scientists suggest
  • he eruptions likely blasted lava, sulfur, and ash across the red planet, altering its atmosphere and surface.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Images - 0 views

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

scibyte105 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used a new technique, with added autonomy for the rover, in placement of the tool-bearing turret on its robotic arm
  • the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument placed close to the target rock
  • image from the rover's front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam) on that sol shows the position of the turret during that process
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The technique, called proximity placement, uses the APXS as if it were a radar for assessing how close the instrument is to a soil or rock surface
  • The rover can interpret the data and autonomously move the turret closer if it is not yet close enough
  • This will enable placement of the instrument much closer to soil targets than would have been feasible without risk of touching the sensor head to loose soil
  • extra days of having team members check the data and command arm movement in response
Mars Base

NASA Space Telescopes Find Patchy Clouds on Exotic World - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 0 views

www.jpl.nasa.gov/...news.php

scibyte105 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet
  • known as Kepler-7b
  • Previous studies from Spitzer have resulted in temperature maps of planets orbiting other stars
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • this is the first look at cloud structures on a distant world.
  • observing this planet with Spitzer and Kepler for more than three years, we were able to produce a very low-resolution 'map' of this giant, gaseous planet
  • wouldn't expect to see oceans or continents on this type of world, but we detected a clear, reflective signature that we interpreted as clouds
  • Kepler-7b was one of the first
  • Kepler's visible-light observations of Kepler-7b's moon-like phases led to a rough map of the planet that showed a bright spot on its western hemisphere
  • data were not enough on their own to decipher whether the bright spot was coming from clouds or heat
  • Spitzer Space Telescope played a crucial role in answering this question
  • Spitzer can fix its gaze at a star system as a planet orbits around the star, gathering clues about the planet's atmosphere
  • Spitzer's ability to detect infrared light means it was able to measure Kepler-7b's temperature, estimating it to be between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 and 1,300 Kelvin).
  • relatively cool for a planet that orbits so close to its star -- within 0.06 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is the distance from Earth and the sun)
  • , too cool to be the source of light Kepler observed.
  • Instead, they determined, light from the planet's star is bouncing off cloud tops located on the west side of the planet.
  • Kepler-7b reflects much more light than most giant planets we've found, which we attribute to clouds in the upper atmosphere
  • the cloud patterns on this planet do not seem to change much over time -- it has a remarkably stable climate
  • With Spitzer and Kepler together, we have a multi-wavelength tool for getting a good look at planets that are trillions of miles away
  • exoplanet science
  • moving beyond just detecting exoplanets, and into the exciting science of understanding them
  • observations of Kepler-7b previously revealed that it is one of the puffiest planets known: if it could somehow be placed in a tub of water, it would float
  • found to whip around its star in just less than five days
  • a fully rendered 3D visualization tool, available for download at http://eyes.nasa.gov/exoplanets
  • program is updated daily with the latest findings from NASA's Kepler mission and ground-based observatories around the world as they search for planets
Mars Base

This Video of a Cyborg Quadriped Will Have You Gasping in Terror - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ill-have-you-gasping-in-terror

scibyte106 BosonDynamics WildCat

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • t the WildCat is a brand new robot created to run fast on all types of terrain, and so far its top speed has been about 16 mph on flat terrain using both bounding and galloping gaits.
Mars Base

Virgin Galactic Ticket To Space Promised In New Reality Show Deal - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...mised-in-new-reality-show-deal

scibyte106 VirginGalactic

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • the executive producer behind Survivor is planning to host another reality competition that will land the winner a rocket trip to space
  • don’t know yet what
  • will be needed to score a trip with Virgin Galactic
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • . A press release simply promises a “groundbreaking, elimination competition series where everyday people compete for the ultimate prize”
  • Virgin says its first spaceflight with SpaceShipTwo will be in 2014, and soon after it will open the manifest to the more than 600 folks who have purchased tickets.
  • As for when
  • this is just an agreement so far and nothing firm has been decided
  • in 2000, Burnett announced another deal with NBC to host a space reality show (Destination Mir), with the winner visiting the Russian space station Mir
  • That idea fell apart when the cash-strapped Russian Federal Space Agency elected to deorbit the aging station in 2001
Mars Base

Is comet ISON disintegrating? - 0 views

phys.org/...comet-ison-disintegrating.html

scibyte105 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • predictions
  • concerning the uncertain future of Comet ISON
  • supported by the most recent optical observation
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • the comet is still showing an unexpected behavior that cometary specialists are fighting to explain
  • . The brightness has remained practically constant for more than 270 days or 9 months, a behavior without any precedent in cometary astronomy
  • presented and discussed what he identified as a peculiar photometric signature previously observed in disintegrating comets
  • . The following few weeks will reveal the real fate of weird Comet ISON.
  • No theoretical model exists capable of explaining all the observed phenomena with those defunct comets.
  • Several well known facts about the strange behavior of Comet ISON should be widely recognized.
  • It was expected that the comet would bright up after passing the "frost line
  • the comet has already passed that line and almost none has occurred.
  • ISON has surprised experts by maintaining almost unmodified its photometric behavior.
  • ISON faces other challenges
  • First, the comet will reach perihelion very near the Sun
  • calculated a temperature of 2,700 degrees Celsius, high enough to melt iron and lead
  • Second,
  • the comet will penetrate the solar Roche limit.
  • Any object penetrating this forbidden limit will experience solar tides that may tear apart the nucleus of the comet
  • The combination of temperature, radiation and tides may prove too much for the comet, which may not survive the encounter with the Sun
Mars Base

First ever evidence of a comet striking Earth - 0 views

phys.org/...3-10-evidence-comet-earth.html

scibyte106 comet

shared by Mars Base on 09 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The comet entered Earth's atmosphere above Egypt about 28 million years ago
  • As it entered the atmosphere, it exploded, heating up the sand beneath it to a temperature of about 2 000 degrees Celsius
  • resulting in the formation of a huge amount of yellow silica glass which lies scattered over a 6 000 square kilometre area in the Sahara
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • specimen of the glass, polished by ancient jewellers, is found in Tutankhamun's brooch with its striking yellow-brown scarab
  • The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered
  • a mysterious black pebble found years earlier by an Egyptian geologist in the area of the silica glass
  • After conducting highly sophisticated chemical analyses on this pebble
  • conclusion that it represented the very first known hand specimen of a comet nucleus
  • The impact of the explosion also produced microscopic diamonds
  • The team have named the diamond-bearing pebble "Hypatia" in honour of the first well known female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria
  • Comet fragments have not been found on Earth before except as microscopic sized dust particles in the upper atmosphere and some carbon-rich dust in the Antarctic ice.
Mars Base

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Returns 1st Flyby images of Earth while Sailing On to Jupiter - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...th-while-sailing-on-to-jupiter

scibyte105

shared by Mars Base on 11 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Following the speed boosting slingshot of Earth on Wednesday, Oct. 9, that sent NASA’s Juno orbiter hurtling towards Jupite
Mars Base

Latest Images of Comet ISON Show it is 'Doing Just Fine' - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...son-show-it-is-doing-just-fine

scibyte105 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 11 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • right now, is that comet ISON is doing just fine! It continues to behave like a fairly typical, if somewhat smaller-than-average
  • Any reports to the contrary are just speculation
  • You can also keep tabs on Comet ISON from SpaceWeather.com’s Comet ISON Realtime Gallery
Mars Base

New strategy to treat multiple sclerosis shows promise in mice - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...y-multiple-sclerosis-mice.html

scibyte106 MultipleSclerosis

shared by Mars Base on 12 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Scientists
  • have identified a set of compounds that may be used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) in a new way
  • existing MS therapies
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • ppress the immune system
  • the compounds boost a population of progenitor cells that can in turn repair MS-damaged nerve fibers
  • cautioned that benztropine is a drug with dose-related adverse side effects, and has yet to be proven effective at a safe dose in human MS patients
  • the newly identified compounds, a Parkinson's disease drug called benztropine, was highly effective in treating a standard model of MS in mice, both alone and in combination with existing MS therapies
  • MS currently affects more than half a million people in North America and Europe, and more than two million worldwide
  • precise triggers are unknown, but certain infections and a lack of vitamin D are thought to be risk factors
  • In MS, immune cells known as T cells infiltrate the upper spinal cord and brain
  • causing inflammation and ultimately the loss of an insulating coating called myelin on some nerve fibers
  • As nerve fibers lose this myelin coating, they lose their ability to transmit signals efficiently, and in time may begin to degenerate
  • resulting symptoms, which commonly occur in a stop-start, "relapsing-remitting" pattern, may include limb weakness, numbness and tingling, fatigue, vision problems, slurred speech, memory difficulties and depression, among other problems
  • Current therapies
  • aim to suppress the immune attack that de-myelinates nerve fibers. But they are only partially effective and are apt to have significant adverse side effects
  • the new study
  • aimed at restoring a population of progenitor cells called oligodendrocytes
  • These cells normally keep the myelin sheaths of nerve fibers in good repair and in principle could fix these coatings after MS damages them
  • oligodendrocyte numbers decline sharply in MS, due to a still-mysterious problem with the stem-like precursor cells that produce them
  • team screened a library of about 100,000 diverse compounds for any that could potently induce OPCs to mature or "differentiate."
  • Several compounds scored well
  • benztropine, had been well characterized and indeed was already FDA-approved for treating Parkinson's disease
  • tests, benztropine showed a powerful ability to prevent autoimmune disease and also was effective in treating it after symptoms had arisen
  • virtually eliminating the disease's ability to relapse
  • benztropine on its own worked about as well as existing treatments, it also showed a remarkable ability to complement these existing treatments
  • two first-line immune-suppressant therapies, interferon-beta and fingolimod
  • Adding even a suboptimal level of benztropine
  • allowed
  • to cut the dose of fingolimod by 90%
  • the same disease-modifying effect as a normal dose
  • that dose-lowering could translate into a big reduction in
  • potentially serious side effects
  • researchers confirmed that benztropine works against disease in this mouse model by boosting the population of mature oligodendrocytes
  • in turn restore the myelin sheaths of damaged nerves
  • even as the immune attack continues
  • benztropine-treated mice showed no change in the usual signs of inflammation, yet their myelin was mostly intact, suggesting that it was probably being repaired as rapidly as it was being destroyed
  • Benztropine is known to have multiple specific effects on brain cells, including the blocking of activity at acetylcholine and histamine receptors and a boosting of activity at dopamine receptors
  • hope to learn more about how
  • its molecular structure might be optimized for this purpose
Mars Base

Mars Rover Curiosity Proves Some Earth Meteorites are Martian | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/iosity-martian-meteorites.html

scibyte106

shared by Mars Base on 20 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • New data collected by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has pinned down the exact ratio of two forms of the inert gas argon in the Martian atmosphere
  • help confirm the origins of some meteorites
  • could also help researchers understand how and when Mars lost most of its atmosphere
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • By understanding exactly how much of the lighter isotope argon-36 is present in the Martian atmosphere and comparing it to the heavier isotope, argon-38, scientists were able to confirm what the composition of a Martian meteorite on Earth should be
  • Curiosity found that the argon ratio for Mars is 4.2. The lighter form of argon has escaped more readily than the heavier isotope
  • Before this new study, scientists had placed the argon ratio somewhere between 3.6 and 4.5 by analyzing gas trapped inside Martian meteors on Earth
  • Argon is the clearest signature of atmospheric loss because it's chemically inert and does not interact
  • Curiosity is unable to directly investigate how much atmosphere Mars is losing, NASA's next Mars mission is designed to do just that
  • The MAVEN spacecraft (the name is short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) will launch toward the Red Planet in November
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