Know Your Cephalopods!

Cristobalite, Hematite

SiO2, Fe2O3

Locality:

Caspar quarry, Bellerberg volcano, Ettringen, Mayen, Eifel, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

An interesting homoepitactic intergrowth from brown and black hematite  

Photo: Michael Förch

Cristobalite is a silica polymorph that is thermodynamically stable only at temperatures above 1470°C, up to the melting point at 1705°C, at atmospheric pressures. It commonly metastably persists or even forms at much lower temperatures in silica-rich volcanic and sedimentary environments. It can form crystals in cavities, probably vapour-deposited, or spherulites in obsidian or other silicic volcanics.

Hematite is rather variable in its appearance - it can be in reddish brown, ocherous masses, dark silvery-grey scaled masses, silvery-grey to black crystals, and dark-grey masses, to name a few. What they all have in common is a rust-red streak.

okay but what if angels are black holes and halos are just the light warping around them being pulled in by gravity 

Why not just buid a solar panel around the sun to solve all energy problemss?

Behold the Dyson Sphere

Dyson sphere is a hypothetical mega-structure that completely encompasses a star and captures most or all of its power output.

Over the years many variants have been explored:

The simplest such arrangement is the Dyson ring, in which all ‘energy harvesting structures’ share the same orbit.

Add multiple Dyson ring structures and you will get a Dyson swarm.

Now what if you didn’t like a consistent orbit for your structures, you could employ a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit( called a statite ).

Such an arrangement would be known as a Dyson Bubble

Then there is the fictionally popular version - The Dyson Shell, where a uniform solid shell of matter just encapsulates the entire star.

And many many more. But you get the gist.

Could there be Dyson Spheres out there?

When scientists were monitoring the brightness from some stars, they found that it fluctuated in some odd ways like so:

                          Brightness v/s time for KIC 8462852

It is common for such dips to occur since when a planet eclipses a star, there would a drop in the brightness observed from the star.

                       Brightness v/s time for a binary star system

But what was baffling was the duration and period of occurrence of these dips.

Although the main line of rationale remains as asteroid impact remnants or interstellar collisions causing these aberrations in data.

But to say that these could the signs of an alien civilization does remain to be the more entertaining interpretation.

Great Question. Thanks for asking !

** For more information. check out this TED talk

lab partner: *hands me precisely 1 mole of a substance*

me: *vine voice* an avogadro!!! thanks!!

The Shepard-Risset Glissando

A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower. It has been described as a “sonic barber’s pole”. 

Jean-Claude Risset subsequently created a version of the scale where the tones glide continuously, and it is appropriately called the continuous Risset scale or Shepard–Risset glissando. When done correctly, the tone appears to rise (or descend) continuously in pitch, yet return to its starting note. Basically, it’s a continuously descending tone that never gets any lower. It’s the acoustical version of M.C. Escher’s Penrose Stairs optical illusion. Source.

Doesn’t it sound a little bit creepy?

A-Z GEMSTONES

BLUE TOURMALINE

Blue Tourmaline strengthens communication skills and psychic awareness. Assists in relating to others lovingly. Helps to live in harmony with your environment. Guides us into service. Tourmaline clears negative emotions and thoughts and opens us to joy and honesty. Aids in the receptivity of inspiration, to flow into the mind. Radiates light protection for wearer.

Blue Tourmaline (Indicolite) Gemstone Meaning:

Blue Tourmaline, also called indicolite or indigolite, is a very rare and special kind of tourmaline. The word Indicolite is derived from the Latin word, meaning ‘indicum plant’. The soothing blue color promotes a calming effect, and offers relief from stress. Blue Tourmaline brings joy and happiness. It promotes harmony, tolerance and kindness.

Some Uses Are: to develop psychic gifts to open doors and communication with the spiritual realm to facilitate deep meditation to better explore and understand past lives 

Combine Blue Tourmaline with these stones: Blue Kyanite, Lapis Lazuli, Aqua Aura, Sodalite

Chakras: Third Eye, Throat Astrological sign: Leo Element: Water Element, Wind Element

BROWN TOURMALINE (DRAVITE)

Dravites or Dravide are excellent for grounding, clearing and opening the connection between the Earth and your body. It protects and shields from negativity that may be directed towards or surrounding you. This Tourmaline brings peace when in a large group and helps with healing in dysfunctional family dynamics. Brown Tourmaline clears your auric field, opening the path for the aligning your energies to its optimum. Plants love Dravite and seem to flourish in its presence.

Dravite (Champagne Tourmaline) Meaning:

Dravite is a brown variety of Tourmaline. It is an ideal stone for self-healing, aids in finding emotional strength and self-acceptance. Dravite inspires courage and persistence. It calms and soothes, grounding and stabilizing the inner self. Use Dravite with these compatible stones to clear and ground the root chakra and provide psychic protection: Black Tourmaline Jet Black Obsidian Smokey Quartz

Chakras: Heart Chakra, Root Chakra Astrological sign: Aries Color: Deep golden brown Element: Earth, Storm Energies: Power, Love

What colour space actually is? I always thought of it as a dark dark dark blue. Why is so? Are we even able to name the colour of it?

Well most of space is very low density and very low pressure. Color is either emitted (as it is by stars, or a lightbulb) or when light interacts with a material.  In space if you’re near something emitting light or reflecting light, you will see that color.  If you are far enough away from all light, it would be black. Without a material to absorb or reflect light, it just keeps traveling on its path. So if no one observed the stars while floaring out in space (light interacting with your eye) would there actually be light there???? Philosophy questions for the new era

Two New Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

We’ve got big science news…!

We’ve just added two more science missions to our lineup! The two selected missions have the potential to open new windows on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system – a time less than 10 millions years after the birth of our sun.

The missions, known as Lucy and Psyche, were chosen from five finalists and will proceed to mission formulation.

Let’s take a dive into each mission…

Lucy

Lucy, a robotic spacecraft, will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids. Scheduled to launch in October 2021, the spacecraft is slated to arrive at its first destination, a main asteroid belt, in 2025. 

Then, from 2027 to 2033, Lucy will explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These asteroids are trapped by Jupiter’s gravity in two swarms that share the planet’s orbit, one leading and one trailing Jupiter in its 12-year circuit around the sun. The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond Jupiter’s current orbit.

Studying these Trojan asteroids will give us valuable clues to deciphering the history of the early solar system.

Psyche

The Psyche mission will explore one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt – a giant metal asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, about three times farther away from the sun than is the Earth. The asteroid measures about 130 miles in diameter and, unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, it is thought to be comprised of mostly metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth’s core.

Scientists wonder whether psyche could be an exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars, but which lost its rocky outer layers due to a number of violent collisions billions of years ago.

The mission will help scientists understand how planets and other bodies separated into their layers early in their histories. The Psyche robotic mission is targeted to launch in October of 2023, arriving at the asteroid in 2030, following an Earth gravity assist spacecraft maneuver in 2024 and a Mars flyby in 2025.

Get even more information about these two new science missions HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Saturn aurora, taken by Nasa Hubble.

js