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2012年4月6日星期五

Atom smasher collides particles at record energies - Fox News

A simulation of a particle collision inside the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland. When two protons collide inside the machine, they create an energetic explosion that gives rise to new and exotic particles.CERN

Physicists have started running the world's largest particle accelerator at a new record energy and taking the first data from these ultra-powerful collisions.

Protons zoom around the 17 mile (27 kilometer) underground loop of the Large Hadron Collider below Switzerland and France, and then crash into each other, dissolving into new and sometimes exotic particles. Scientists have now sped up those protons a bit more, sending them speeding toward each other at energies of 4 teraelectron volts (TeV), creating a collision energy of 8 TeV — a new world record.

"The increase in energy is all about maximizing the discovery potential of the LHC," Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at the LHC's home lab CERN, said in a statement. "And in that respect, 2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics."

'The increase in energy is all about maximizing the discovery potential of the LHC.'

- Sergio Bertolucci, director of research

Ramping up to higher energies means the LHC has a better chance of creating the rare and highlysought particles it was designed to search for. These include the long-theorized, but not-yet-detected Higgs boson particle, as well as the particles predicted by a physics theory called supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles are discovered, they may offer an explanation for the mystery of dark matter, the invisible stuff thought to make up most of the matter in the universe. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]

LHC was opened in September 2008, but shut off nine days later after an accident damaged a number of its superconducting magnets. The accelerator was fixed and got back up and running a little over a year later, and has been operating steadily since. Starting in March 2010, the proton beams have been colliding at energies of 3.5 TeV, creating a smash of 7 TeV.

"The experience of two good years of running at 3.5 TeV per beam gave us the confidence to increase the energy for this year without any significant risk to the machine," said Steve Myers, CERN's director for accelerators and technology. "Now it's over to the experiments to make the best of the increased discovery potential we're delivering them!"

The increased energy should mean more Higgs boson particles are produced, if they exist. Already, scientists at two of the LHC's experiments, Atlas and CMS, have seen promising indications of an excess of particles weighing around 125 GeV (gigaelectron volts) — potentially a sign of the Higgs. Yet physicists say they don't have enough data to confirm a discovery with certainty.

The increased energy should up the chances of creating Higgs particles inside the machine, though it will also create more of the "background" particles that produce similar signatures, and must be weeded out from the data.

Ultimately, scientists plan to run particle beams through the LHC at an astounding 7TeVeach, producing collisions of a whopping 14TeV. To do that, they'll need to refurbish the accelerator during a planned shutdown at the end of this year.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

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2012年3月31日星期六

Under the sea: Amazon founder Bezos wants to recover Apollo 11 engines from ... - Greenfield Daily Reporter

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LOS ANGELES — For more than four decades, the powerful engines that helped boost the Apollo 11 mission to the moon have rested in the Atlantic. Now Internet billionaire and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos wants to raise at least one of them to the surface.

An undersea expedition spearheaded by Bezos used sonar to find what he said were the F-1 engines located 14,000 feet deep. In an online announcement Wednesday, the Amazon.com CEO and founder said he is drawing up plans to recover the sunken engines, part of the mighty Saturn V rocket that launched Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their moon mission.

The five engines, which produced nearly 7.7 million pounds of thrust, dropped into the sea as planned minutes after liftoff in 1969. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon.

"We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in," he wrote. "They hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see."

Bezos acknowledged the engines were the property of NASA, but said he hoped they will be displayed in museums.

NASA expressed excitement about the find. The space agency said it has not been formally contacted by Bezos and waited for more information.

"There has always been great interest in artifacts from the early days of space exploration and his announcement only adds to the enthusiasm of those interested in NASA's history," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said in a statement.

No timetable has been set for the recovery. When it happens, it'll undoubtedly take longer to hoist the 19-foot engines off the sea floor than the 2 1/2 minutes it took for them to power off the launch pad.

The sea floor is littered with spent rockets and flight parts from missions dating back to the dawn of the Space Age and it's unknown what survived decades later after crashing into the ocean.

In 2009, a private company salvaged Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule that accidentally sank in the Atlantic after splashdown in 1961. It was restored and displayed at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

Bezos' planned Apollo recovery is the latest deep-sea adventure by the wealthy. "Avatar" director James Cameron over the weekend rode a mini-sub to Earth's deepest spot in the western Pacific Ocean, seven miles below the surface, which he described as an alien world. Sir Richard Branson plans a similar dive to the deepest part of the Atlantic, the Puerto Rican trench, later this year.

Bezos was 5 years old when he watched the moon landing on television and became hooked on getting to space. NASA "sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore," he wrote.

It was not immediately clear when Bezos' team spotted the Apollo engines. Bezos offered few details about the discovery and did not say how he knew the engines were from Apollo 11. The cost of the recovery was not disclosed, but Bezos said it will be done with private funds.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said Bezos was not available for comment.

Bezos' Blue Origin has been developing a vertical takeoff and landing rocketship that would fly passengers to suborbital space. It has NASA funding to compete to go into orbit as a space taxi now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.

Last year, a test flight went awry when the vehicle became unstable at 45,000 feet and crashed.

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'Tens of billions' of planets in habitable zones - AFP

'Tens of billions' of planets in habitable zones(AFP) – 3 hours ago?

PARIS — A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) says it found nine "super-Earths" in a sample survey of 102 stars known as red dwarves.

"Super-Earths" are rocky planets -- as opposed to gassy giants -- that orbit their stars in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold but just right to have the potential to nurture life.

In this balmy region, the planet is neither scorched nor frozen, and water can exist in liquid form.

The ESO team used a powerful 3.6-metre (11.7-feet) telescope, known by its acronym of HARPS, at their observatory in Chile's Atacama desert.

"Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40 percent of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," said Xavier Bonfils of the Observatory of the Sciences of the Universe in Grenoble, southeastern France.

"Because red dwarves are so common -- there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way -- this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone," he said in an ESO press release issued on Wednesday.

By ESO's estimate, there could be around 100 "super-Earths" in stars less than 30 light years from Earth.

In cosmic terms, such distances are just a flea jump, but they are an impossible gap for Man to bridge with current space technology.

A total of 763 exoplanets, the term for a planet in another solar system, have been found since the first was detected in 1995, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (http://exoplanet.eu/).

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2012年3月30日星期五

Smithsonian Showcases Replica Of Monster Snake - W*USA 9

WASHINGTON (AP) - A prehistoric monster snake the length of a school bus has made its way to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

The National Museum of Natural History is opening an exhibit featuring a life-size replica of Titanoboa on Friday. The fossil of the world's largest snake was found several years ago in a coal mine in Colombia.

When it was alive, the snake weighed 2,500 pounds and was 48 feet long. It was found near fossilized plants, giant turtles and other creatures dating to more than 60 million years ago.

The exhibit will be on view in Washington through Jan. 6, 2013. Then it will begin a tour of museums across the country.

On Sunday, the Smithsonian Channel debuts a new documentary about the discovery, "Titanoboa: Monster Snake."

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Monster Solar Tornadoes Discovered - Discovery News

Using the high-definition eyes of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, huge magnetic twisters have been spotted evolving deep inside the solar corona. Often, these tornadoes are spotted near erupting coronal mass ejections. These tornadoes may be key to better predicting space weather.

For the first time, huge solar tornadoes have been filmed swirling deep inside the solar corona -- the sun's superheated atmosphere. But if you're imagining the pedestrian tornadoes that we experience on Earth, think again.

These solar monsters, measuring the width of several Earths and swirling at speeds of up to 300,000 kilometers (190,000 miles) per hour, aren't only fascinating structures; they may also trigger violent magnetic eruptions that can have drastic effects on our planet.

NEWS: Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs

In one example observed on Sept. 25, 2011, solar researchers from the UK used the high-definition cameras onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to track solar gases as hot as 2 million Kelvin (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit) getting sucked from the bottom of a solar prominence and spiral high into the corona. The solar tornado then developed for three hours, gases traveling in spiral paths for around 200,000 kilometers (120,000 miles).

"Prominences are tangled magnetic fields trapping cold and dense plasma in the solar corona," Xing Li, solar physicist at Aberystwyth University, told Discovery News. "These often erupt spectacularly and fly out into space as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and large CMEs will impact our space weather and space technology in a significant way when they are heading toward the Earth.

"What drives these eruptions is still not clear and is very important to gain an understanding of CME initiation (so that we can possibly predict such events)."

NEWS: Modern Society Threatened by Solar Storms

As mankind becomes more dependent on sensitive technology, it is critical that we develop new and more sophisticated ways to predict the sun's next "temper tantrum." As it turns out, these twisted tornadoes may hold the key to predicting when the next CME will be launched.

"This unique and spectacular tornado must play a role in triggering global solar storms," said co-discoverer Huw Morgan, also at Aberystwyth University.

"These tornadoes may help to produce favorable conditions for CMEs to occur," Li added, pointing out that the tornadoes his team studied coincided with CME eruptions as observed by other instruments monitoring the wider corona.

Also, the tornadoes observed so far by Li and Morgan often occur at the root of where CMEs are initiated. As the dynamic structures wind-up magnetic fields and drag powerful electric currents high into the corona, these tornadoes could generate the conditions ripe for CME eruptions, they theorize.

But to observe the tornadoes in the first place requires a bit of luck.

Firstly, as they are magnetic structures, if the tornado is empty of radiating plasma, they will remain invisible. Only when hot plasma is being dragged high into the corona can they be seen. Conversely, should the tornado be completely flooded with plasma, you wouldn't see the motion of the material as the radiating plasma would be completely washed out.

BIG PIC: Solar Storm Paints Stunning Northern Lights

Li highlights the need for discrete objects inside the swirling mass so they can be tracked as they move around the tornado. He likens this to the dust and bits of debris that a terrestrial tornado would pick up. Without these objects, we couldn't "see" the spinning wind currents. The same goes for solar tornadoes; discrete "blobs" of plasma can be tracked as they are accelerated and carried high into the corona by the tornado's magnetic field.

"Also, we believe that the angle you view the tornado from is important," Li added. "For example, if you imagine the slinky structure mentioned above, if you view it from the side it may not appear so clearly as a tornado."

In the past, observers have spotted prominences that they described as "tornadoes," but in the days before the SDO was launched, the necessary definition and rapid image capturing techniques simply weren't available.

This research, including the first video of a solar tornado the researchers refer to as "the beast" (pictured top), was presented at the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) in Manchester on Thursday. Animations of the tornado, plus more imagery, can be found on Li's research page.

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Weather Runs Hot and Cold, So Scientists Look to the Ice - New York Times

As a surreal heat wave was peaking across much of the nation last week, pools and beaches drew crowds, some farmers planted their crops six weeks early, and trees burst into bloom. “The trees said: ‘Aha! Let’s get going!’?” said Peter Purinton, a maple syrup producer in Vermont. “?‘Spring is here!’?”

Now, of course, a cold snap in Northern states has brought some of the lowest temperatures of the season, with damage to tree crops alone likely to be in the millions of dollars.

Lurching from one weather extreme to another seems to have become routine across the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of the United States may be shivering now, but Scotland is setting heat records. Across Europe, people died by the hundreds during a severe cold wave in the first half of February, but a week later revelers in Paris were strolling down the Champs-élysées in their shirt-sleeves.

Does science have a clue what is going on?

The short answer appears to be: not quite.

The longer answer is that researchers are developing theories that, should they withstand critical scrutiny, may tie at least some of the erratic weather to global warming. Specifically, suspicion is focused these days on the drastic decline of sea ice in the Arctic, which is believed to be a direct consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases.

“The question really is not whether the loss of the sea ice can be affecting the atmospheric circulation on a large scale,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a Rutgers University climate researcher. “The question is, how can it not be, and what are the mechanisms?”

Some aspects of the climate situation are clear from earlier research.

As the planet warms, many scientists say, more energy and water vapor are entering the atmosphere and driving weather systems. “The reason you have a clothes dryer that heats the air is that warm air can evaporate water more easily,” said Thomas C. Peterson, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A report released on Wednesday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that issues periodic updates on climate science, confirmed that a strong body of evidence links global warming to an increase in heat waves, a rise in episodes of heavy rainfall and other precipitation, and more frequent coastal flooding.

“A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events,” the report found.

Some of the documented imbalances in the climate have certainly become remarkable.

United States government scientists recently reported, for instance, that February was the 324th consecutive month in which global temperatures exceeded their long-term average for a given month; the last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985. In the United States, many more record highs are being set at weather stations than record lows, a bellwether indicator of a warming climate.

So far this year, the United States has set 17 new daily highs for every new daily low, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times by Climate Central, a research group in New Jersey. Last year, despite a chilly winter, the country set nearly three new highs for every low, the analysis found.

But, while the link between heat waves and global warming may be clear, the evidence is much thinner regarding some types of weather extremes.

Scientists studying tornadoes are plagued by poor statistics that could be hiding significant trends, but so far, they are not seeing any long-term increase in the most damaging twisters. And researchers studying specific events, like the Russian heat wave of 2010, have often come to conflicting conclusions about whether to blame climate change.

Scientists who dispute the importance of global warming have long ridiculed any attempt to link greenhouse gases to weather extremes. John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told Congress last year that “the weather is very dynamic, especially at local scales, so that extreme events of one type or another will occur somewhere on the planet every year.”

Yet mainstream scientists are determined to figure out which climate extremes are being influenced by human activity, and their attention is increasingly drawn to the Arctic sea ice.

Because greenhouse gases are causing the Arctic to warm more rapidly than the rest of the planet, the sea ice cap has shrunk about 40 percent since the early 1980s. That means an area of the Arctic Ocean the size of Europe has become dark, open water in the summer instead of reflective ice, absorbing extra heat and then releasing it to the atmosphere in the fall and early winter.

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Fossil raindrop impressions reveal Earth's early atmosphere - TG Daily

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Unearthed fossil foot could belong to new human ancestor, scientists say - Fox News

Published March 29, 2012

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The fourth metatarsal of the Burtele partial foot right after discovery in Stephanie Melillo's hand.Yohannes Haile-Selassie / The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

A laboratory photo shows the Burtele partial foot (BRT-VP-2/73) in its anatomically articulated form after cleaning and preparation.Yohannes Haile-Selassie / The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

The first element of the Burtele partial foot, fourth metatarsal, as it was found on the ground in the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia.Yohannes Haile-Selassie / The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Lead author Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, in the field investigating a fossil fragment.Yohannes Haile-Selassie / The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

The Burtele partial foot embedded in an outline of a gorilla foot.Yohannes Haile-Selassie / The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

CLEVELAND – ?Ancient foot bones discovered in Ethiopia point to the existence of a previously-unknown human ancestor whose feet were specially adapted to tree climbing.

U.S. and Ethiopian scientists said that a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot found in Burtele, in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia, belonged to a prehuman who coexisted with the famous "Lucy" species, Australopithecus afarensis.

Scientists have long argued that there was only one prehuman species between three and four million years ago, but the fossilized foot bones provide the first indisputable evidence that at least two prehuman species with different modes of movement lived at the same time in East Africa.

The discovery, detailed Thursday in the journal Nature, suggests that while the newly-discovered species could walk upright like members of the "Lucy" species, its opposable big toe meant it was more adept at climbing and swinging from trees.

Researchers hope the fossils will provide scientists with a clearer picture of how primitive feet evolved and humans became separated from apes.

Coauthor Dr. Bruce Latimer of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland said, "It is now clear that the adaptation to terrestrial bipedality was not a single, isolated event."

He added, "Rather, one group [Lucy's species] totally relinquished the arboreal habitat and became functionally-committed, long-distance ground walkers -- while another group, represented by the Burtele foot, maintained a climbing foot and stayed, at least part of the time, in the trees. It is now apparent which group succeeded."

The new Burtele species cannot be named until a skull and teeth are found, the scientists said.

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2012年3月29日星期四

Sand Flea Robot Can Jump 30 Feet High - MyFox Memphis

(EndPlay Staff Reports) - The Sand Flea Robot can jump atop a 30-foot building with a single bound.

Developed by Boston Dynamic as a tool to obtain information for the U.S. military, the Sand Flea, aptly named because of its incredible jumping ability, will hopefully aid soldiers in war zones by revealing potential threats, CNET reported.

The robot has four wheels and weighs 11 pounds. It can jump up to 30 feet high when not actually in a forward moving motion by using CO2 fired from a piston. And it can jump 25 times in a row before having to be recharged, IEEE Spectrum reported.

The Sand Flea has such precision, that when properly controlled, it can leap into a window of a second story building. It does this by stopping, leaning on its back wheels and then propelling itself upward.

One issue that was given special attention was making sure the camera on the Sand Flea would remain steady enough while in jumping motion to provide useful visuals. For this, a gyro stabilization feature was used to keep the camera steady, as well as the robot upon landing, CNET explained.

Before it makes its actual military debut, Sand Flea must first undergo tests and trials at the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC). Safety and reliability tests will be conducted and then the robot will make its way to Afghanistan to be used by U.S. military there.

Robots are being more commonly used in the line of duty to aid soldiers in surveillance before actually going into a building or climbing over a wall.

Another robot being tested alongside the Sand Flea is the RHex, which is a 30 pound robot inspired by a cockroach. It can crawl up to 6 hours on one battery charge and is able to navigate through mud, streams and rocky land.

Watch a video of the Sand Flea in action.

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James Cameron ocean dive will be turned into 3D movie - TG Daily

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Robotic jellyfish runs off renewable energy - ZDNet (blog)

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Hot Topics Tablets Apple iPad Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Apple iPhone Enterprise 2.0 Microsoft Office Green tech GreenTech Pastures Heather Clancy Mobile RSS Email Alerts Home / News & Blogs / GreenTech Pastures Robotic jellyfish runs off renewable energy By Heather Clancy | March 26, 2012, 12:49pm PDT

Summary: Researchers at the University of Texas (Dallas) and Virginia Tech experiment with a robot that runs of hydrogen and oxygen.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas and Virginia Tech are using the concept of biomimicry to experiment with a robot that could, in the future, provide a model for the design of undersea surveillance and rescue vehicles.

So far, researchers have applied their approach to a robotic jellyfish (see the video below for a demonstration). The robotic jellyfish uses hydrogen and oxygen gasses in water as its source of energy. The work is described in Smart Materials and Structures.

“We’ve created an underwater robot that doesn’t need batteries or electricity,” said Yonas Tadesse, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, and one of the study’s authors, in a statement about the research. “It feeds off hydrogen and oxygen gasses and the only waste released as it travels is water.”

The idea is that in the future, product designers may be able to use the concepts for the jellyfish in unmanned robots used in rescue and reconnaissance situations.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it. More from “GreenTech Pastures” Miami company launches electronics refurbishment venture Topics Renewable Energy, Researcher, Telecom & Utilities, Heather Clancy

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues.

Full Bio Disclosure Contact Disclosure Heather Clancy

Writing publicly about what the high-tech industry is actually doing to help itself and the world get greener or more sustainable is one way I figure I can contribute more meaningfully to said effort. I am also a big OMG-kind-of-fan of smart leadership, which is why the goodly folks who publish this blog let me go on about this topic and why I am always on the hunt for forward-looking business management ideas.

My daily writing is focused on looking for topics for my blogs, GreenTech Pastures and Business Brains. I also write often about emerging technology trends such as mobile computing, unified communications and cloud computing. Occasionally, I will pop up at an industry conference in some sort of speaking capacity. In cases where a speaking engagement involves a sponsor that may be covered in this blog, that fact will be disclosed in coverage as appropriate.

My corporate writing work usually consists of crafting research white papers about some aspect of technology. In the event that my commentary (in written, audio or video form) mentions a company for which I have provided consulting advice, I will disclose that fact. However, there is no connection between these projects and the topics that I am covering in my blog.

Biography Heather Clancy

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In a past corporate life, Heather was editor of Computer Reseller News, where she was a featured speaker about everything from software as a service to IT security to mobile computing.

Heather started her journalism life as a business writer with United Press International in New York. She holds a B.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and has a thing for Lewis Carroll. Vendor HotSpotHere to help you with your Document Management Needs

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Not this again Robert Hahn 8 hrs ago Where did they get the free Hydrogen? Or is this going to be another demonstration that if you expend energy -- mysterious energy, the kind that never makes it into these articles -- to break water apart, you can get most of it back when you bond the Hydrogen with Oxygen? Isn't it time to stop treating this simple chemical reaction as some kind of Magical Green Energy? Reply Flag Join the conversation! Subject (Max length: 75 characters) Formatting + Comment BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums[b] Bold [/b][i] Italic [/i][u] Underline [/u][s] Strikethrough [/s][q] "Quote" [/q][ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol][ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul][pre] Preformat [/pre][quote] "Blockquote" [/quote] The best of ZDNet, delivered ZDNet Newsletters Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

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Moon Rock Analysis Casts Doubt on Lunar Origins - Wired News

By Tim Wogan, ScienceNOW

The moon, that giant lump of rock that has fascinated poets and scientists alike, may be about to get even more interesting. A new analysis of isotopes found in lunar minerals challenges the prevailing view of how Earth’s nearest neighbor formed.

Most scientists believe Earth collided with a hypothetical, Mars-sized planet called Theia early in its existence, and the resulting smash-up produced a disc of magma orbiting our planet that later coalesced to form the moon. This is called the giant impact hypothesis. Computer models indicate that, for the collision to remain consistent with the laws of physics, at least 40% of the magma would have had to come from Theia.

One way to test the hypothesis is to look at the isotopes of particular elements in rocks returned from the moon. Atoms of most elements can occur in slightly different forms, called isotopes, with slightly different masses. Oxygen, for example, has three isotopes: 16O, 17O and 18O, indicating differences in the number of neutrons each nucleus contains. Compare any two samples of oxygen found on Earth and you’ll find the proportions of 16O, 17O and 18O isotopes are almost identical in the two samples. The proportions found in samples from meteorites and other planets like Mars, however, are usually different. So if you find that a sample has the same oxygen isotope composition as one from Earth, then it’s very likely the sample came from our world.

Previous research has established that the oxygen isotope composition of lunar samples is indistinguishable from that of Earth. Since 40% of the moon is supposed to have come from Theia (which presumably would have had a different isotope composition), this might spell trouble for the giant impact hypothesis. But it’s possible that Earth may have exchanged oxygen gas with the magma disk that later formed the Moon shortly after the collision, explaining why the results are the same.

In the new research, published online today in Nature Geoscience, geochemists led by Junjun Zhang at the University of Chicago in Illinois, together with a colleague at the University of Bern in Switzerland, looked at titanium isotopes in 24 separate samples of lunar rock and soil. The proportion of 50Ti to 47Ti is another good indicator of whether a sample came from Earth, and, just as with oxygen, the researchers found the moon’s proportion was effectively the same as Earth’s and different from elsewhere in the solar system. Zhang explains that it’s unlikely Earth could have exchanged titanium gas with the magma disk because titanium has a very high boiling point. “The oxygen isotopic composition would be very easily homogenized because oxygen is much more volatile, but we would expect homogenizing titanium to be very difficult.”

So, if the giant impact hypothesis doesn’t explain the moon, how did it get there? One possibility is that a glancing blow from a passing body left Earth spinning so rapidly that it threw some of itself off into space like a shot put, forming the disk that coalesced into the moon. This would explain why the moon seems to be made entirely of Earth material. But there are problems with this model, too, such as the difficulty of explaining where all the extra angular momentum went after the moon formed, and the researchers aren’t claiming to have refuted the giant impact hypothesis.

Planetologist Matthias Meier of Lund University in Sweden, who was not involved in the new study, finds the research persuasive, but he’s not ready to give up on the giant impact hypothesis either. “I think the general idea of having an impact forming a disk and this disk then forming a moon is probably right,” he says, “but this paper shows us that we still don’t understand exactly what the mechanism is, and there is a lot of work to be done in that field.”

This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.

Image: New research sheds light on how the moon formed. (Cosmic Collisions Space Show/Rose Center for Earth and Space/AMNH)

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2012年3月28日星期三

Space Station Crew Scrambles as Debris Passes Nearby - New York Times

HONG KONG — Crew members aboard the International Space Station temporarily scrambled into spacecraft capable of returning them to Earth early on Saturday as remnants of a discarded Russian satellite passed nearby, the latest episode spotlighting the growing amount of space debris encircling the planet.

The crew — three Russians, two Americans and a Dutch astronaut — climbed into the two spacecraft as the debris passed within about nine miles of the space station, at 2:38 a.m. Eastern time. Soon afterward, NASA officials allowed the astronauts to return to the station.

“Nichevo,” or nothing, one Russian astronaut was heard saying in NASA’s live online broadcast.

NASA said it did not notice the debris until Friday, too little time to put more distance between the station and the trajectory of the debris. While NASA expected the debris to pass by safely, the six astronauts — Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko of Russia; Donald R. Pettit and Daniel C. Burbank of the United States; and André Kuipers of the Netherlands — were ordered into the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA said it could not determine the size of the debris. Even small amounts of debris, however, can pose a danger to the 450-ton space station; the space station and the satellite debris were traveling at speeds of 17,500 miles an hour, NASA said.

Saturday’s episode underscored a recent report by the National Research Council warning that the increasing amount of space debris is threatening to interfere with the space station and working satellites.

The nonprofit group warned that the growing amount of debris is threatening to make low-Earth orbit unusable because of the potential for collisions.

The United States Space Surveillance Network is tracking more than 22,000 objects larger than 4 inches in size, NASA said, with about 1,000 being some form of spacecraft and the rest being classified as debris. Most of the debris floats within 1,250 miles, or low orbit, of the planet.

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Plastic bleeds red and heals like human skin - TG Daily

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Venus, Jupiter and Moon Back for More; Conjunction Lights up March 26 Twilight ... - Indian Country Today Media Network.com

This NASA sky map shows the positions of Venus, Jupiter and the moon on March 26, 2012 during a potentially spectacular conjunction of the three objects.

Venus, the moon and Jupiter are closing in for yet another love triangle on March 26, official sky observers say. And this will be their last, since Jupiter flits off to its far-flung orbit as March flows into April, and the three are not due to meet in Mother Earth’s sky for quite some time.

The crescent moon, in a slightly different position than it took during the previous three-way in late February, will hover slightly above and to the left of Venus.

Having already started in during the day, with Venus visible near the moon during the afternoon of March 26, the two will be joined by Jupiter at their usual rendezvous time at dusk, Space.com reports. Viewers in North America will see the three closest together at about 9 p.m. EDT.

The three will form an arrow—think Cupid—with Jupiter at the downward point in what Space.com calls a “twilight light tango” cum “pas de trois as our nearest neighbor, the moon, gets involved in this eye-catching celestial scene.”

It also marks a fond farewell, as Jupiter drifts into the nether regions of its orbit. It will be back in view in June, but without its cherished partners.

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'Twist-O' toy inspires collapsible 'buckliball' - msnbc.com

17 hrs.

John Roach via Future of Tech

Meeting the people and exploring the inventions that are shaping our horizons.

The Twist-O, a quirky expandable spherical toy, has inspired a team of engineers to design a 3-D structure that collapses in on itself. The breakthrough, they say, isn't just about fun and games: It could lead to new structures such as buildings with collapsible walls, high-tech drugs, and advanced robotics.

The new structure is a called a "buckliball" in a nod to buckyballs, the spherical all-carbon molecules whose name was inspired by the geodesic domes created by the architect-inventor Buckminster Fuller, according to the team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

The buckliball is a hollow spherical object made of soft rubber and contains no moving parts. Instead, it has 24 carefully spaced dimples. When the air is sucked out of the buckliball with a syringe, thin ligaments forming columns between lateral dimples collapse.

As the thin ligaments buckle, thicker ligaments that form rows between the dimples undergo a series of movements the researchers refer to as a "cooperative buckling cascade."?

MIT explains in a news release: "Some of the ligaments rotate clockwise, others counterclockwise – but all move simultaneously and harmoniously, turning the original circular dimples into vertical and horizontal ellipses in alternating patterns before closing them entirely."?

This is likely a case where a picture and video are worth much more than words. The collapsed buckliball is in the upper right of this post. Watch the video clip above to see the toy and the ball in action.

The buckliball is the first morphable structure to incorporate buckling as something to be desired, according to MIT. Potential uses include a building with a collapsible roof or wall – perhaps something more high-tech than the retractable roof at Safeco Field?where the Seattle Mariners play baseball.

Another potential use for such buckling structures might be a robotic arm that uses precisely engineered dimples at hinging points (joints) that bend when activated by a pressure signal.

For more, check out the paper on buckliballs published online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.?

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website?and follow him on Twitter. For more of our Future of Technology?series, watch the featured video below.

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2012年3月22日星期四

Radio Glitch Delays 5-Rocket Launch to Edge of Space - Space.com

map of the United States' mid-Atlantic region shows the flight profile of NASA's five ATREX rockets, as well as the projected area where they may be visible after launch on March 14, 2012. The rockets' chemical tracers, meanwhile, should be visible from South Carolina through much of New England.
CREDIT: NASA/Wallops
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A radio system glitch on one of five small rockets aimed at the edge of space has forced NASA to cancel a barrage of overnight launches tonight that promised to dazzle East Coast skywatchers with glowing midnight clouds.

The malfunction was detected as scientists prepared for the late-night launch rocket launches, which were scheduled to blast off within about five minutes of one another at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. The initial launch was targeted for 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT) on Thursday (March 15).

"We scrubbed for tonight and our next attempt will be no earlier than Friday night, March 16," NASA spokesman Keith Koehler told SPACE.com from the Wallops launch site on the Atlantic coast. ?

An internal radio frequency interference problem with one of the payloads on the rockets caused the launch delay, Koehler said. Mission scientists will meet Thursday to discuss the problem as well as study weather reports for Friday's potential launch attempt, he added.

The five rockets form the core of NASA's Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX), a $4 million program to study the high-altitude jet stream of wind that blows at speeds of 300 mph (483 kph) at heights of between ?60 and 65 miles (97 to 105 kilometers) above Earth. Theories have suggested that these high-altitude winds should only reach speeds of up to 50 mph (80 kph). The edge of space is commonly set at 62 miles (100 km) above Earth.

To study the jet stream mystery, NASA scientists have loaded each ATREX rocket with a chemical tracer known as trimethyl aluminum. The experiment is designed to spray the material into the jet stream so observers on Earth can map the winds.

That chemical tracer is expected to be seen as glowing, milky white clouds visible to skywatchers along major stretches of the U.S. East Coast, running from southern Vermont and New Hampshire to the border of North and South Carolina.

Koehler said that NASA's next window to launch the ATREX rockets stretches from March 16 to April 3. If the radio interference issue is solved, but the weather does not cooperate on Friday, the agency will reconvene for a potential weekend liftoff or plan for another launch try next week, he added.

"Next week is supposed to be really nice," Koehler said.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

SHARE document.write(''); 5 Rocket Launches in 5 Minutes to Light Up Night Sky | Video In Images: Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds Best Binoculars for Skywatchers and Observers ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tariq joined TechMediaNetwork's SPACE.com team in 2001 as a staff writer, and later editor, covering human spaceflight, exploration and space science. He became SPACE.com's Managing Editor in 2009. Before joining SPACE.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University.

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