The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

Size is sometimes important ...

Artemis I prepares for its final test ahead of launch

The first NASA mission to the moon since 1972 is ready for its most crucial test to date. The 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Artemis I rocket stack, including NASA's mega SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, will begin the wet dress rehearsal Friday. The test is expected to last through Sunday. The results of the test will determine when the uncrewed Artemis I will launch on a mission that goes beyond the moon and returns to Earth. This mission will kick off NASA's Artemis program, which is expected to return humans to the moon and land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface by 2025.

... Once the rocket has been loaded with more than 700,000 gallons (3.2 million liters) of propellant, the teams on Sunday will go through all of the steps toward launch."Liquid hydrogen is at a negative 450 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 268 degrees Celsius), liquid oxygen is negative 273 (negative 169 degrees Celsius), so it's very cold substances," said Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development at NASA Headquarters during the news conference. "I used to participate in this back in the Shuttle Program and it's like watching a ballet. You've got pressure, volume and temperature. And you're really kind of working all those parameters to have a successful tanking operation."

https://youtu.be/tYEScppA5o8

It is nice when we build rockets that don't carry bombs.

So, the Saturn 5 was just a big kerosene heater!



Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Not a planet any more, but still interesting ...

Pluto has giant ice volcanoes that could hint at the possibility of life

Images of Pluto captured by NASA's New Horizons mission have revealed a new surprise: ice volcanoes.

The spacecraft performed a flyby of the dwarf planet and its moons in July 2015, and the insights gathered then are still rewriting nearly everything scientists understand about Pluto. Pluto was relegated to dwarf planet status in 2006 when the International Astronomical Union created a new definition for planets, and Pluto didn't fit the criteria.

The dwarf planet exists on the edge of our solar system in the Kuiper Belt, and it's the larger of the many frozen objects there orbiting far from the sun. The icy world, which has an average temperature of negative 387 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 232 degrees Celsius), is home to mountains, valleys, glaciers, plains and craters. If you were to stand on the surface, you would see blue skies with red snow.

... "We found a field of very large icy volcanoes that look nothing like anything else we have seen in the solar system," said study author Kelsi Singer, senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. ... "This means Pluto has more internal heat than we thought it would, which means we don't fully understand how planetary bodies work," she said. ... "The icy material was probably more of a slushy mix of ice and water or more like toothpaste while it flowed out of a volcanic vent onto the surface of Pluto," Singer said. "It is so cold on the surface of Pluto that liquid water cannot remain there for long. In some cases, the flow of material formed the massive domes that we see, as well as the lumpy terrain found everywhere in this region."

... Pluto once had a subsurface ocean, and finding these ice volcanoes could suggest that the subsurface ocean is still present -- and that liquid water could be close to the surface. Combined with the idea that Pluto has a warmer interior than previously believed, the findings raise intriguing questions about the dwarf planet's potential habitability.
"There are still a lot of challenges for any organisms trying to survive there," Singer said. "They would still need some source of continual nutrients, and if the volcanism is episodic and thus the heat and water availability is variable, that is sometimes tough for organisms as well."

https://us.cnn.com/2022/03/29/world/pluto-ice-volcanoes-scn/index.html

https://youtu.be/_sbswkA7gRE

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I also have some "bulges" that increase with age ...

The Milky Way's 'thick disk' is 2 billion years older than scientists thought

The thick disk began forming stars just 0.8 billion years after the Big Bang.

... In the new study, scientists inferred the ages of roughly 250,000 stars in the Milky Way using brightness, positional and chemical composition data gathered by two powerful telescopes: the European Space Agency's (ESA) orbiting Gaia observatory, and the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in China. ...

... The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy measuring about 105,000 light-years across, but not all parts of that spiral are uniform in thickness, composition or stellar density.

Near the center of our galaxy is an enormous bulge of stars (and probably a supermassive black hole whose gravity holds the galaxy together). Rippling out on either side of that bulge is the galaxy's disk, which is made of two main sections.

One side of the disk – the "thin disk" – contains most of the stars we can see from Earth, mixed in with clouds of star-forming gas. The "thick disk," meanwhile, is about twice the height of the thin disk, but has a much smaller radius and only contains a small fraction of the stars we can see in the sky, according to ESA. This part of the Milky Way is also thought to be much older — devoid of gas, and done with its star-forming days. ...

In their new study, the researchers looked at stars throughout the Milky Way, focusing on a specific type of star called a subgiant. These are stars that have stopped generating energy in their cores, and are slowly transforming into red giants (enormous stars that are on their way to collapsing into white dwarfs). The subgiant phase is a relatively brief period of stellar evolution, which means astronomers can estimate the ages of these stars with more accuracy, according to the researchers.

Because older stars tend to glow in a specific range of brightness and contain lower metal content (that is, elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) than younger stars, the team was able to date their sample of stars by running data from both telescopes through a computer simulation. The researchers found that stars in the galaxy's thick disc were indeed much older than the stars seen elsewhere — and surprisingly, those stars were billions of years older than previous studies suggested.

According to the researchers, this discovery could rewrite the history of our galaxy. The age differences between stars in the thin and thick disks suggest that our galaxy formed in two discrete phases. First, 0.8 billion years after the Big Bang, star formation began in the thick disk. This star formation accelerated greatly about 2 billion years later when a dwarf galaxy called the Gaia Sausage collided with our young galaxy, kicking off the second phase of galactic evolution. During this second phase, the thick disk rapidly filled up with stars, while the first wave of star formation began in the thin disk. ...
https://www.livescience.com/milky-way-thick-disc-age

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Anyone watching STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, Season 4, probably already knows what this is! (NO SPOILERS please! I am only on Episode 4. So far, Season 4 is excellent, by the way!):

There is a new kind of mystery object in space, and after capturing their best image yet, astronomers are one step closer to understanding these celestial oddballs.

... Astronomers found the odd radio circles using the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope, operated by Australia's national science agency CSIRO, or Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, two years ago.

These space rings are so massive that they measure about a million light-years across -- 16 times bigger than our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers believe it takes the circles 1 billion years to reach their maximum size, and they are so large that the objects have expanded past other galaxies.

... Initially, astronomers thought the circles could be galactic shock waves or even the throats of wormholes, among a whole host of ideas. Now, researchers have narrowed down a range of theories to three.

The odd radio circles could be remnants of a huge explosion at the center of a galaxy, not unlike what happens when two supermassive black holes merge together.

Second, they might be powerful jets pumping out energetic particles from the galactic center.

Or, the third possibility is that they could be the result of a starburst shock wave triggered by the birth of stars in a galaxy.

... "We know ORCs are rings of faint radio emissions surrounding a galaxy with a highly active black hole at its centre, but we don't yet know what causes them, or why they are so rare," said study coauthor Ray Norris, a professor at the Western Sydney University and CSIRO, in a statement.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/03/24/world/...scn/index.html

Data from the MeerKAT telescope (green) showing the odd radio circles is overlaid on optical and near-infrared data from the Dark Energy Survey.

DMA Anomaly from Star Trek Discovery, Season 4 ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Webb Update ... like looking at yourself in the mirror ...

The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has released its first sharp image and it is a doozy — a spectacular view of a twinkling orange star that is focused with such sharpness that it pushes the limits of the laws of physics.

The image shows that the telescope's 18 separate mirrors are now accurately aligned and acting as one, and the photo is even better than scientists hoped it would be, NASA officials said in a statement.

The Webb team released the photograph of the Milky Way star, designated 2MASS J17554042+6551277 and located roughly 2,000 light-years away, Wednesday (March 16). It was taken with a red filter to maximize the visual contrast between the star and the blackness of space, while dozens of other stars and distant galaxies can be seen in the background.

... According to BBC News, the image shows that the optical systems of the new space telescope are now working better than the scientists and engineers had hoped. ... "The engineering images that we see today are as sharp and as crisp as the images that Hubble can take but are at a wavelength of light that is totally invisible to Hubble," ...

https://www.livescience.com/james-we...its-of-physics

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes show a filament of matter and antimatter extending from a pulsar.

A small pulsar has belched out an enormous beam of matter and antimatter particles that streamed for 40 trillion miles (64 trillion kilometers) across the Milky Way.

Astronomers detected the cosmic particle trail in images captured in X-rays by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in space and in optical light by the Gemini North telescope in Hilo, Hawaii.

Observations of X-ray filaments emitted by pulsars are rare; to date, only a handful have been detected, researchers reported in a new study.

Pulsars are dense, shrunken remnants of giant collapsed stars that emit radiation pulses as they spin, and they have powerful magnetic fields that are generated by their rapid rotation. This pulsar, known as PSR J2030+4415 (J2030 to its close friends) spins about 1,600 light-years from Earth and is relatively tiny — just 10 miles (16 km) in diameter, or about the size of a city, NASA representatives said in a statement.

This fast-spinning pulsar travels through space at about 500,000 mph (800,000 km/h) and rotates about three times per second; as it spun, charged particles escaped as a streaming filament that was then captured in telescope images.

...

https://www.livescience.com/pulsar-s...ntimatter-beam

Gassho, J

STLah

[Amelia]

Geika, our priest in San Diego, BE CAREFUL!! 'Hypercarnivore' with blade-like teeth found in San Diego, California!!

(okay, 42 million years ago!)

Had me scared there for a second! I already gotta worry about mountain lions and rattlesnakes

I went to the zoo last month and it got me thinking about what would happen to our local ecology if the San Diego Safari Park suddenly had all its animals escape into the San Pasqual Valley... O_O

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Jundo]

The source of sentience ... all that separates us from them, complexity ...

These 1-millimeter-long worms can make complex decisions with a mere 300 neurons

The worms have around 285 million times fewer nerve cells than humans

A tiny worm with just 300 brain cells has shocked scientists with its ability to make complex decisions. These invertebrate Einsteins display a range of different "smart" behaviors that vary with the situation, despite having sparse neuron power ...

When P. pacificus came across a C. elegans larvae in the lab, they bit and killed the juvenile nematodes before eating them; however, when the predatory worm went up against fully grown C. elegans, they used non-lethal bites meant to act as a territorial warning that caused C. elegans adults to move away from the bacteria. P. pacificus are perfectly capable of killing an adult C. elegans worm, but such fights likely require more energy and potentially risk injury. Therefore, researchers believe that P. pacificus worms are choosing whether or not to kill their competitors based on the size and life stage of the C. elegans. ... During the experiments, P. pacificus was also more likely to bite C. elegans when there were fewer bacteria around, regardless of their life stage, suggesting that the nematodes can factor in multiple types of information when making decisions. For a worm with only 300 neurons, this level of decision making is very surprising to researchers. The ability to weigh the costs and benefits of an action with multiple potential outcomes is seen often in vertebrates, but previously scientists thought invertebrates lacked this ability, according to the statement.

The researchers don't know exactly how P. pacificus makes such complicated decisions with so few neurons. However, when the team inhibited the worm's ability to produce dopamine, a chemical known as a neurotransmitter that is used to fire nerve cells in a majority of animals, it caused the worms to target adult C. elegans worms with territorial bites. The researchers also inhibited the worm's ability to produce octopamine, a neurotransmitter exclusively found in invertebrates, which caused the worms to focus less on adult C. elegans worms and target larvae instead. It is, therefore, likely that these two neurotransmitters play a key role in the decision-making, the researchers wrote in the paper. ...
https://www.livescience.com/worms-ma...th-300-neurons

Alas, human beings have kept the killing part ... but seem far less logical about it ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Geika, our priest in San Diego, BE CAREFUL!! 'Hypercarnivore' with blade-like teeth found in San Diego, California!!

(okay, 42 million years ago!)

An unidentified fossil collected more than three decades ago was actually a mysterious species of saber-toothed carnivore that once stalked prey through the ancient rainforests of Southern California.

The fossil includes a near-complete lower jawbone and a set of well-preserved teeth, according to a new study, published Tuesday (March 15) in the journal PeerJ. Paleontologists at the San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat) originally collected the specimen in 1988 from a site known as the Santiago Formation in Oceanside, a city in San Diego County, California. The geological formation is estimated to be about 42 million years old, so fossils from the site date back to the Eocene epoch (55.8 million to 33.9 million years ago), according to the American Museum of Natural History.

... Remains of these strange beasts have been uncovered only at select sites in Asia and North America, and prior to the new study, only 14 specimens had ever been found, according to the PeerJ report. The now-extinct group includes the earliest known saber-toothed mammalian carnivores, which are not closely related to any living carnivores.

https://www.livescience.com/newfound...othed-predator

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Sadly, we also learn from our pioneers and failures as well ... as much knowledge was gained here.

Let us sit for Mr. Bennett, his family and doctors, and also for the animals who sacrificed for his life ...

First person to receive heart transplant from pig dies, says Maryland hospital

David Bennett dies two months after groundbreaking surgery
His condition began deteriorating several days earlier

Two months after a pioneering operation, the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, the US hospital that performed the surgery announced on Wednesday.

A handyman by trade, David Bennett, 57, had undergone the experimental procedure in Baltimore, Maryland, after suffering from heart failure and being out of other options.

Bennett died on Tuesday, the University of Maryland medical center said, adding that he was able to communicate with his family during his final hours.

Senior doctors hailed a “brave man” who had made a big contribution to advancing medical science by taking part in the surgery.

The hospital did not provide an exact cause of death but said his condition had worsened in recent days. Bennett’s son, David Bennett Jr, said his father knew the 7 January operation might not work, but was grateful to the medical community for such innovation. He had called the procedure “a miracle”.

... On Wednesday the scientific director at the University of Maryland’s animal-to-human transplant program, Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, paid tribute to Bennett. “Mr Bennett was a brave man. Without his contribution, we couldn’t have done this procedure. He was brave enough to donate his body to science and to accept this pig heart, which many would not. We are grateful to his family who also supported during this long survival of two months.

“This is the first time a pig organ has been transplanted in a human and there are lot of unknowns that we can discover after carefully evaluating the dataA lot of new information will come out that will help the field move forward at a faster pace.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-david-bennett

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

Wow, very bright!!

gassho, Shokai

[Jundo]

Very interesting. That note accompanying the remains, perportedly to be 300 years (give or take a few), appears to be in very good condition. (Could it be it a copy and they didn't show the original?)

gassho, Shokai
stlah

Japanese washi paper can last a long time ... also SCIENCE!

https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b02321/

They have many examples which still survive in good condition from even the Heian Period, 1000+ years ago ...



Letter Known as "Kuni no Moshibumi Jo," by Fujiwara no Sukemasa, Heian period, dated 982.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

Very interesting. That note accompanying the remains, perportedly to be 300 years (give or take a few), appears to be in very good condition. (Could it be it a copy and they didn't show the original?)

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Jundo]

A Japanese temple mystery to be solved ... with SCIENCE!

A “mermaid mummy” kept at a temple has been an object of worship, the stuff of nightmares and a source of mystery for hundreds of years.

Now, for the first time, a project has started to scientifically analyze the mummified creature, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish.

The researchers from the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts here and other organizations plan to announce their findings around autumn.

On Feb. 2, Kozen Kuida, 60, chief priest at Enjuin temple in Asakuchi in the prefecture [a Tendai Buddhist temple], removed the 30-centimeter-long treasured specimen from a paulownia box in the CT scanning room of the university’s veterinary hospital.

Laying face up on an examination table, the mummy appeared to be locked in a scream while holding its hands to its mouth. In addition to nails and teeth, the mummy has hair on its head and scales on the lower body.

According to a note contained in the same box of the “dried mermaid,” the creature was caught in a fishing net on the coast of Tosa Province (present-day Kochi Prefecture) between 1736 and 1741.

The Kojima family in Bingo-Fukuyama Province bought the mummy before it was passed on to other owners after the turn of the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

... Takafumi Kato, 54, a professor at the university specializing in paleontology, is in charge of the morphology analysis of the upper body of the Enjuin temple specimen. It will be his first research on a mythical creature. ... An associate professor specializing in ichthyology is focusing on the lower body, while another associate professor with expertise in molecular biology is carrying out a DNA analysis. ... The team will release their results later in the year, they said. ...


“We have worshipped it, hoping that it would help alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly,” the head priest said. “I hope the research project can leave (scientific) records for future generations.”

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14543351

https://youtu.be/SzJGdWeyE5Q

Gassho, J

STLah

[Meian]

All of this is why astronomy is one of my most favorite subjects. I'm not good at talking the lingo, but I love reading about it and soak up everything I can of research and how it all works. For me, the origin of all that is.

Was just discussing this (astronomy, physics, philosophy) with a student last night.

Thank you for sharing. [emoji120] Sorry for running long.

Gassho2, meian st

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