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Mars Base

Norwegian Family Finds Meteorite Crashed Through Their Roof | Fallen Meteorites | Space... - 0 views

www.space.com/teorite-crash-oslo-norway.html

scibyte38 meteor meteorite

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Norwegian family arrived at their cabin in Oslo recently to discover that a meteorite had apparently fallen through their roof
  • after visiting the holiday cabin for the first time all winter,
  • rock may have fallen during a wave of meteor sightings over Norway on March 1
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • hundreds of tips and have been searching for bits of meteorites
  • identified the rock as a rare type of breccia meteorite, which is a conglomerate of smaller fragments of minerals
  • 1.3 pound (585 gram) stone was found split in two
  • Space rocks rarely fall in populated areas, and such a find in Norway is exceedingly special
  • According to Views and News from Norway, only 14 meteorites have been found in the Scandinavian country since 1848.
Mars Base

Data support theory on location of lost Leonardo da Vinci painting - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ry-lost-leonardo-da-vinci.html

scibyte38 art daVinci

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Evidence uncovered during research conducted in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio late last year appears to support the theory that a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting existed on the east wall of the Hall of the 500, behind Giorgio Vasari's mural "The Battle of Marciano."
  • data supporting the theoretical location of the da Vinci painting "The Battle of Anghiari" was obtained through the use of an endoscopic probe that was inserted through the wall on which the Vasari fresco was painted
  • Using endoscopic technology
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • researchers were able to view the wall behind the Vasari mural and obtain samples for analysis
  • data from chemical analysis, while not conclusive, suggest the possibility that the da Vinci painting, long assumed to have been destroyed in the mid-16th century when the Hall of the 500 was completely remodeled, might exist behind the Vasari.
  • Although we are still in the preliminary stages
  • data are very encouraging
  • still a lot of work to be done to solve this mystery
  • evidence does suggest that we are searching in the right place."
  • team report four lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the lost Leonardo painting is located behind the Vasari mural
  • sample containing a black material was analyzed with SEM-EDX
  • scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy), which identifies the chemical elements present in a sample
  • material found behind the Vasari wall shows a chemical composition similar to black pigment found in brown glazes on Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" and "St. John the Baptist," identified in a recently published scientific paper by the Louvre, which analyzed all the da Vinci paintings in its collection.
  • Flakes of red material were found
  • these samples seems to identify them as organic material, which could be associated with red lake (lacquer). This type of material is unlikely to be present in an ordinary plastered wall.
  • research team confirmed the existence of an air gap, originally identified through radar scans conducted of the Hall, between the brick wall on which Vasari painted his mural and the wall located behind
  • finding suggests that Vasari may have preserved da Vinci's masterpiece by building a wall in front of it at this location. No other location in the Hall presented this type of air gap.
  • opportunity to conduct an endoscopic investigation through the Vasari wall
  • identified 14 areas to be explored
  • six points of entry were ultimately implemented
  • chosen by the restorers of the Opificio delle Peitre Dure in areas free of original Vasari paint
  • including cracked or previously restored areas, to ensure that drilling would not cause any damage to the original Vasari mural
  • Testing on those samples was conducted with portable instruments on the scaffolding itself
  • The painting commemorated the 1440 victory of the battle on the plain of Anghiari between Milan and the Italian League led by the Republic of Florence
  • 1503, da Vinci was commissioned
  • to paint the "The Battle of Anghiari"
Mars Base

Polymer Power Drives Tiny Reactions - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...er_power_drives_tiny_reactions

scibyte38

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Applying force to polymers in water generates enough energy to drive chemical reactions
  • won’t replace large-scale energy operations
  • offers a way to harness the wisps of unused energy generated by everyday endeavors, like walking or compacting plastic bags at a recycling center
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • capturing such energy could lead to cheap, clean ways to sanitize a small container of water, for example, or to run a simple lab bench reaction
  • Scientists knew that bonds can break when mechanical force is applied to a polymer
  • breakage can generate free radicals, atoms with unpaired electrons that are eager to engage in further reactions
  • new work shows that when a polymer is squeezed in water, the free radicals migrate and react with the water, generating enough hydrogen peroxide to spur other reactions.
  • When the scientists added gold and silver metal salts to a PDMS tube filled with water, squeezing the tube powered reactions that generated gold and silver nanoparticles
  • also injected the sole of a Nike LeBron sneaker with water and a compound that fluoresces when it is cleaved
  • Half an hour of walking applied force to the polymers in the sneaker’s sole, and the resulting free radicals made enough hydrogen peroxide to cleave the fluorescing compound and make the sole glow. 
  • capturing and converting the mechanical energy of polymer squeezing into energy for driving reactions can be as efficient as 30 percent
  • comparable to some power plants that use coal.
  • PDMS is used in some medical devices such as catheters, and in some breast implants, raising the issue that normal wear in the body might generate free radicals that could cause inflammation and other problems
  • adding an antioxidant such as vitamin E, which latches onto free radicals, to the implant ingredients might be a quick and easy way to
  • Some of the body’s immune cells, though, generate well more hydrogen peroxide than that generated by the polymers
  • the fact that enough free radicals are generated to drive reactions — which might even contribute to the breakdown of medical devices — is interesting, Tang says. “I don’t know how unique it is or material-specific, but it could have potential importance.”
Mars Base

Lego Space Shuttle Takes Flight, Returns to Earth Undamaged | PCWorld - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...eturns_to_earth_undamaged.html

scibyte38 lego space

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • : Raul Oaidia from Romania launched a Lego space shuttle into the stratosphere on the back of a weather balloon.
  • help from Steve Sammartino, a businessman who funded this Lego spaceflight
  • Lego space shuttle model (set number 3367!) and a video camera to capture the voyage.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • According to Raul, he and his father traveled to Germany to launch the balloon, since that country's regulations on this sort of project are more relaxed than those in Romania
  • launch took place on December 31, and the balloon with its Lego cargo flew to an altitude of about 35,000 meters (that's roughly 114,800 feet for those of us in the US).
  • Check out Raul's blog for the full story, and a list of the equipment he used to carry out the launch
  • Mars Base on 14 Mar 12
     
    Lego Space Shuttle Takes Flight, Returns to Earth Undamaged
Mars Base

S.Korean, Russian scientists bid to clone mammoth - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-scientists-clone-mammoth.html

scibyte38 mammoth

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Russian and South Korean scientists have signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
  • The deal was signed by Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic
  • controversial cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, on Tuesday.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into creating human stem cells was found in 2006 to have been faked
  • Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2005, has been verified by experts
  • Sooam said it would launch research this year if the Russian university can ship the remains. The Beijing Genomics Institute will also take part in the project
  • South Korean foundation said it would transfer technology to the Russian university
  • first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells
  • scientists in trying to find well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene
  • replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's somatic cells,
  • embryos with mammoth DNA could be produced and planted into elephant wombs for delivery
  • Sooam will use an Indian elephant for its somatic cell nucleus transfer
  • South Korean experts have previously cloned animals including a cow, a cat, dogs, a pig and a wolf
Mars Base

Laser lightning rod: Guiding bursts of electricity with a flash of light - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...lightning-rod-electricity.html

scibyte38 lightning

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • New research reveals that brief bursts of intense laser light can redirect these high-power electrical discharges.
  • French researchers have coaxed laboratory-generated lightning into striking the same place, not just twice, but over and over
  • used femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) pulses of laser light to create a virtual lightning rod out of a column of ionized gas
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Previous experiments confirmed that femtosecond laser could produce ultrashort filaments of ionized gas that act like electrical guide
  • Further studies revealed that these filaments could function over long distances, potentially greater than 50 meters.
  • of new experiments
  • research team sent a laser beam skimming past a spherical electrode to an oppositely charged planar electrode
  • laser stripped away the outer electrons from the atoms along its path
  • a plasma filament that channeled an electrical discharge from the planar electrode to the spherical one
  • researchers added a longer, pointed electrode to their experiment
  • Without the laser, the discharge obeyed this rule and always struck the taller, pointed electrode
  • With the laser, however, the discharge was redirected, following the filaments and striking the spherical electrode instead
  • even after the initial path of the discharge began to form
Mars Base

Full Titanic site mapped for 1st time - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-03-full-titanic-site-1st.html

scibyte37 Titantic

shared by Mars Base on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • April 10, 1912 file photo, the Luxury liner Titanic departs Southampton, England
  • Researchers have pieced together what's believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field
  • Marks on the muddy ocean bottom suggest, for instance, that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as the ship sank, rather than plunging straight down
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • sonar imaging and more than 100,000 photos taken from underwater robots to create the map
  • Explorers of the Titanic
  • have known for more than 25 years where the bow and stern landed
  • previous maps of the floor around the wreckage were incomplete
  • mapping took place in the summer of 2010 during an expedition to the Titanic led by RMS Titanic Inc., the legal custodian of the wreck
  • joined by other groups, as well as the cable History channel
  • Details on the new findings
  • are not being revealed yet
  • the network will air them in a two-hour documentary on April 15, exactly 100 years after the Titanic sank
  • high-resolution photos - 130,000 of them in all
  • self-controlled robots known
  • along the ocean bottom day and night
  • moving at a little more than 3 miles per hour as they traversed back and forth in a grid along the bottom
  • photos were stitched together on a computer to provide a detailed photo mosaic of the debris
  • layout of the wreck site and where the pieces landed provide new clues on exactly what happened
  • Computer simulations will re-enact the sinking in reverse, bringing the wreckage debris back to the surface and reassembled
Mars Base

Apollo 11: 'A stark beauty all its own' - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...12-03-apollo-stark-beauty.html

scibyte37 Archeology

shared by Mars Base on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • image of the Apollo 11 landing site captured from just 24 km (15 miles) above the surface provides LRO's best look yet at humanity’s first venture to another world
  • Armstrong and Aldrin's surface activities were quite restricted. Their tracks cover less area than a typical city block
  • Apollo 15, 16, and 17, which had the benefit of a Lunar Roving Vehicle
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  • Apollo 12 and 14, which allowed for more time on the surface
Mars Base

Four-winged dinosaur's feathers were black with iridescent sheen - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...feathers-black-iridescent.html

scibyte37 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • team of American and Chinese researchers
  • color and detailed feather pattern
  • Microraptor, a pigeon-sized, four-winged dinosaur that lived about 130 million years ago
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • fossilized plumage, which had hues of black and blue like a crow
  • earliest record of iridescent feather color
  • Although its anatomy is very similar to birds, Mircroraptor is considered a non-avian dinosaur
  • placed in the group of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs that includes Velociraptor
  • color displayed by many modern birds is produced partially by arrays of pigment-bearing organelles called melanosomes
  • t a hundred of which can fit across a human ha
  • melanosome's structure is constant for a given color
  • imaging power of scanning electron microscopes, paleontologists recently started analyzing the shape of melanosomes in well-preserved fossilized feather imprints
  • comparing these patterns to those in living birds, scientists can infer the color of dinosaurs that lived many millions of years ago
  • Iridescence is widespread in modern birds and is frequently used in displays
  • Statistical analysis of the data predicts that Microraptor was completely black with a glossy, weakly iridescent blue sheen.
  • researchers also made predictions about the purpose of the dinosaur's tail
  • Once thought to be a broad, teardrop-shaped surface meant to help with flight
  • researchers think that the tail feather was ornamental and likely evolved for courtship and other social interactions, not for aerodynamics
  • actually much narrower with two elongate feathers
  • findings also contradict previous interpretations that Microraptor was a nocturnal animal because dark glossy plumage is not a trait found in modern nighttime birds.
Chris Fisher

Mystery: U.S X-37B space plane has been in orbit for over a year | Mail Online - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...7B-space-plane-orbit-year.html

military shuttle

shared by Chris Fisher on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Last May, amateur astronomers were able to detect the orbital pattern of the first X-37B which included flyovers of North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, heightening the suspicion that the vehicle was being used for surveillance.
  • Other industry analysts have speculated that the Air Force is just making use of the X-37B’s amazing fuel efficiency and keeping it in space for as long as possible to show off its credentials and protect it from budget cuts.
Mars Base

Big Solar Storm Packed Small Punch | Solar Flare 2012 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/solar-storm-earth-effects.html

scibyte37 sun

shared by Mars Base on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • triggered weaker-than-expected disruptions
  • Early forecasts showed that the oncoming CME could boost solar radiation in space and trigger geomagnetic storms on Earth, potentially disrupting satellites, power grids and other electronic infrastructure.
  • effects of the solar tempest have been milder than scientists originally predicted
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • due to the orientation of the CME and Earth's magnetic fields
  • "If it's oriented more southward, which is opposite to Earth, then we expect a stronger storm, but it appears that this one was very much north oriented
  • orientation of the magnetic field in the CME is a big determining factor for how strong or weak the event is going to be
  • coronal mass ejection has a cloud of particles, but also embedded in that is a magnetic field structure
  • while it hasn't packed much of a punch so far, this ongoing solar storm is the largest one scientists have seen in more than five years
Mars Base

Twin NASA Science Probes Start Lunar Gravity Mapping - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...es-start-lunar-gravity-mapping

scibyte37 Grail

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Twin GRAIL Moon Probes Ebb and Flow Start Lunar Gravity Science Mission
  • have just begun their science mission and will use a precision formation-flying technique to map Lunar Gravity
  • science mapping phase officially began Tuesday (March 6)
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • there is still a lot we don’t know about the Moon says Zuber, like why the near side is flooded with magma and smooth and the back side is not smooth and completely different.
  • formation-flying spacecraft will make detailed science measurements from lunar orbit with unparalleled precision to within 1 micron – the width of a human red blood cell
  • MoonKAMs on both Ebb and Flow were turned on Monday, March 5, and all appears well
  • Bozeman 4th graders will have the opportunity to target the first images a week after our science operations begin
Mars Base

Mars orbiter catches twister in action - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...rs-orbiter-twister-action.html

scibyte37 mars

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • dust plume is about 30 yards or meters in diameter.
  • The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been examining Mars with six science instruments since 2006
  • This mission has returned more data about Mars than all other orbital and surface missions combined.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • More than 21,700 images taken by HiRISE are available for viewing on the instrument team's website: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu .  
  • can reveal features as small as a desk
Mars Base

Exotic material shows promise as flexible, transparent electrode - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ble-transparent-electrode.html

scibyte37 electronics

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • An international team of scientists with roots at SLAC and Stanford has shown that ultra-thin sheets of an exotic material remain transparent and highly conductive even after being deeply flexed 1,000 times and folded and creased like a piece of paper.
  • first practical applications: flexible, transparent electrodes for solar cells, sensors and optical communications devices.
  • basic structural unit for bismuth selenide is a five-layer sandwich made up of alternating single-atom sheets of selenium (orange) and bismuth (purple).
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • stacked on top of each other as thicker samples are made
  • selenium-selenium bonds between the units are weak
  • overall material to flex durably without being damaged
  • researchers made and tested samples of a compound in which sheets of bismuth and selenium, each just one atom thick, alternate to form five-layer units. The bonds between the units are weak, allowing the overall material to flex while retaining its durability
  • topological insulator
  • the material conducts electricity only on its surface while its interior remains insulating
  • it is an exceptionally good electrical conductor – as good as gold
  • bismuth selenide is transparent to infrared light, which we know as heat
  • about half the solar energy that hits the Earth comes in the form of  infrared light, few of today’s solar cells are able to collect it
  • transparent electrodes on the surfaces of most cells are either too fragile or not transparent or conducting enough
  • experiments also showed that bismuth selenide does not degrade significantly in humid environments or when exposed to oxygen treatments that are common in manufacturing.
  • bismuth selenide may be useful in communications devices. This material could also improve infrared sensors common in scientific equipment and aerospace systems.”
Mars Base

cme_c3.gif (GIF Image, 512 × 512 pixels) - 0 views

www.spaceweather.com/...cme_c3.gif

scibyte37 sun

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 08 Mar 12
     
    Eruption Video
Mars Base

20120307_014400_anim.tim-den.gif (GIF Image, 960 × 600 pixels) - 0 views

iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/...120307_014400_anim.tim-den.gif

scibyte37

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 08 Mar 12
     
    Prediction gif
Mars Base

Biggest Solar Storm in Years Bombarding Earth Now | Solar Flares & Space Weather | Spac... - 0 views

www.space.com/storm-hitting-earth-today.html

scibyte37 sun

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • the CME did not hit Earth head-on, the material delivered a glancing blow to the planet, and energetic particles will continue to interact with Earth's magnetic field over the course of the day.
Mars Base

A Close-up Look at the Massive Solar Storm that Shook the Sun - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...solar-storm-that-shook-the-sun

scibyte37 sun

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • large X5.4 solar flare that erupted on the Sun on March 7, 2012 at 00:28 UT, (7:28 PM EST on March 6).
  • high-definition views from the Solar Dynamics Observatory also show the subsequent solar tsunami that rippled across the Sun, appearing as though the Sun ‘shook’ from the force of the flare.
  • NASA Goddard’s Space Weather Lab and NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center say surely there will be aurorae from this blast
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • After the first big blast, about an hour later, at 01:14 UT (8:14 PM EST, March 6) the same region let loose an X1.3 class flare. An X1 is 5 times smaller than an X5 flare
  • the region had already produced numerous M-class and one X-class flare,
  • region continues to rotate across the front of the sun, so these latest flares were more Earth-facing than the previous ones
  • big blast did trigger a temporary radio blackout on the sunlit side of Earth that interfered with radio navigation and short wave radio.
  • that solar tsunami
  • waves move at over a million miles per hour
  • one side of the Sun to the other in about an hour
  • movie shows two distinct waves. The first seems to spread in all directions; the second is narrower, moving toward the southeast
  • waves are associated with, and perhaps trigger, fast coronal mass ejections, so it is likely that each one is connected to one of the two CMEs that were associated with the flares
  • Close-up Look at the Massive Solar Storm
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