Solar System: Things To Know This Week

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Reaching out into space yields benefits on Earth. Many of these have practical applications — but there’s something more than that. Call it inspiration, perhaps, what photographer Ansel Adams referred to as nature’s “endless prospect of magic and wonder.“

Our ongoing exploration of the solar system has yielded more than a few magical images. Why not keep some of them close by to inspire your own explorations? This week, we offer 10 planetary photos suitable for wallpapers on your desktop or phone. Find many more in our galleries. These images were the result of audacious expeditions into deep space; as author Edward Abbey said, "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”

1. Martian Selfie

This self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the robotic geologist in the “Murray Buttes” area on lower Mount Sharp. Key features on the skyline of this panorama are the dark mesa called “M12” to the left of the rover’s mast and pale, upper Mount Sharp to the right of the mast. The top of M12 stands about 23 feet (7 meters) above the base of the sloping piles of rocks just behind Curiosity. The scene combines approximately 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, camera at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. Most of the component images were taken on September 17, 2016.

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2. The Colors of Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution, enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode.

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3. The Day the Earth Smiled

On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, our Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn’s shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings — and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn’s orbit, the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.

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4. Looking Back

Before leaving the Pluto system forever, New Horizons turned back to see Pluto backlit by the sun. The small world’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture. The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles called tholins. This image was generated by combining information from blue, red and near-infrared images to closely replicate the color a human eye would perceive.

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5. Catching Its Own Tail

A huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from Cassini. This picture, captured on February 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. The storm is a prodigious source of radio noise, which comes from lightning deep within the planet’s atmosphere.

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6. The Great Red Spot

Another massive storm, this time on Jupiter, as seen in this dramatic close-up by Voyager 1 in 1979. The Great Red Spot is much larger than the entire Earth.

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7. More Stormy Weather

Jupiter is still just as stormy today, as seen in this recent view from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, when it soared directly over Jupiter’s south pole on February 2, 2017, from an altitude of about 62,800 miles (101,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops. From this unique vantage point we see the terminator (where day meets night) cutting across the Jovian south polar region’s restless, marbled atmosphere with the south pole itself approximately in the center of that border. This image was processed by citizen scientist John Landino. This enhanced color version highlights the bright high clouds and numerous meandering oval storms.

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8. X-Ray Vision

X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by our Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The NuSTAR data, seen in green and blue, reveal solar high-energy emission. The high-energy X-rays come from gas heated to above 3 million degrees. The red channel represents ultraviolet light captured by SDO, and shows the presence of lower-temperature material in the solar atmosphere at 1 million degrees.

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9. One Space Robot Photographs Another

This image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Victoria crater, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately half a mile (800 meters) in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material. Since January 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been operating in the region where Victoria crater is found. Five days before this image was taken in October 2006, Opportunity arrived at the rim of the crater after a drive of more than over 5 miles (9 kilometers). The rover can be seen in this image, as a dot at roughly the “ten o'clock” position along the rim of the crater. (You can zoom in on the full-resolution version here.)

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10. Night Lights

Last, but far from least, is this remarkable new view of our home planet. Last week, we released new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night from the NASA-NOAA Suomi-NPP satellite. The clouds and sun glint — added here for aesthetic effect — are derived from MODIS instrument land surface and cloud cover products.

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Americas at night

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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

More Posts from T-sci-eng and Others

t-sci-eng

7 years ago

Behold the awesomeness that is the heart of a blue whale. This colossal organ weighs 440 pounds and was retrieved from the carcass of a whale that had washed up on the shore of Newfoundland in 2014. Despite decomposition the heart was still in such great condition that it was a perfect candidate for preservation via plastination, which is precisely what was done by mammalogy technicians at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Head over to Wired to learn how museum scientists went about preserving this titanic ticker.

[via Wired]

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t-sci-eng

7 years ago

Ceramics: Aluminum Nitride

First synthesized in the late 1800s, aluminum nitride’s potential wasn’t realized until a hundred years later in the late 1900s. AlN is a ceramic with high thermal conductivity but is an electrical insulator. It is classified as a covalent compound, the only stable compound in the binary Al-N system.

AlN is similar in properties to beryllium oxide (BeO), but is cheaper and has less of a potential to be toxic. In addition to the properties mentioned above, this ceramic also has high chemical resistance and exhibits piezoelectric properties.

Thanks to its thermal and electrical conductivity properties, AlN is useful in microelectronics. It is used in microelectronic packaging, surface acoustic wave sensors, in RF filters, as a crucible for the growth of gallium arsenide crystals, in piezoelectric MEMs applications, and many more. In addition, the wurtzite phase of aluminum nitride, w-AlN, is a wide band gap semiconductor material, with potential applications in deep ultraviolet optoelectronics.

Because AlN is a covalent compound, high pressures or sintering aids are required to assist densification during production. Typical additives include rare-earth or alkaline-earth oxides, such as yttrium compounds. The additives and sintering conditions used can alter the properties of commercially available grades of AlN.

Sources: ( 1 ) ( 2 - images 2 and 3 ) ( 3 - images 1 and 4 ) ( 4 )

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t-sci-eng

7 years ago

I have always been fascinated by Pokemon.

Tiding through the waves of time, now that I think about it : Pokemon did teach me a lot about physics, especially electricity.

What is Electricity ?

Electricity stems from a potential difference between two areas, which allows for electromotive force to ensue in mobile electrons.

Bio-electricity

In biological cells, a voltage imbalance or a cell potential difference exists between the inside and outside of a a cell.

The cell achieves this by removing 3 sodium ions for every 2 potassium ions allows into the system. The removing process consumes energy ( ATP ).

The sodium ions leaving the cell

The Potassium ions entering the cell

Source Video

Pikachu and Bioelectrogenesis

Where does pikachu gets it’s electrical powers ?

Its by a process known as bioelectrogenesis.

Bioelectrogenesis is the generation of electricity by living organisms

How it works is rather blunt. Remember I told you that the cells are maintained in a potential difference.

There are passageways /electrolytes that are present that allows a flow of ions through them.

Ion Passageways

When required, the brain of the pikachu sends a signal through the nervous system to these electrolytes, opening ions channels and reversing charge polarity, causing an abrupt difference in electric potential.

The final effect is the generation of electric current, capable of going up to 100,000 Volts during its thunderbolt move.

Result : Opponent stupefied.

Water is better conductor than air

Most of animals that bioelectrogenic in nature are aquatic creatures ( electric eels, rays, cattlefish, etc ) . This is because water is a much better electrical conductor than air, therefore electrical signals signals can be transmitted through water.

This betters the chance for the organism to protect itself against predators. Pikachu is not aquatic because probably the writes didn’t want it be so - Poetic License ;P

Some other pokemons that were also bioelectrogenic were: Eelektrik and the Eelektross

The voice of Pikachu - must watch

Electrogenic Humans

The one that ash has is a male pikachu. There is a female to the species as well. ( Look at the tail )

That’s pokemon physics for you folks.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post as much i did drafting it. Oh boy! There is physics just in about everything !

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t-sci-eng

6 years ago

Crows Are So Scarily Clever They Can Judge Weight Using a Technique We've Only Seen in Humans

When we look at the way an object moves, humans are able to use this context to infer weight - whether it is light or heavy.

Crows and ravens are pretty well known for their incredible smarts. In this experiment, psychologists sought to determine how well New Caledonian crows can infer weight.

Alloys: 300 series Stainless Steel

When chromium is added to steel in sufficient amounts, it reacts with oxygen on the surface of the metal, creating a thin transparent layer that prevents further oxidation such as rusting. The layer is even self-healing, when damaged by scratches or wear. Steels that have over ten percent chromium added are classified as stainless steels, with high strength and toughness, in addition to the corrosion resistance - and there are hundreds of varieties of stainless steel.

As such, these alloys are divided into types, or series, often defined by their compositions or the methods of forming and working them. The 300 series of stainless steels are austenitic stainless steels, with an austenitic or face-centered cubic crystal structure. They contain anywhere from about 15-30% chromium, as well as up to about 20% nickel and other elements such as molybdenum. The nickel stabilizes the austenitic structure and increases ductility as well as high temperature strength and corrosion resistance.

The 300 series alloys are non-magnetic in the annealed condition, though they can become slightly magnetic when cold worked, depending on the nickel content. Comparatively, these steels have high ductility, low yield stress, and high tensile strengths.

Commonly used 300 series stainless steels include 301, 302, 304, and 316, as well as the low carbon variations of these types, designated with an L, such as 316L. 304 stainless steel is also often called 18/8 stainless steel, given that it has 18% Cr and 8% Ni, or A2 stainless. The 316 grade is also know as A4, or marine grade stainless.

In the photos above, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is clad in type 304 SS, while the Chrysler Building in New York is clad with Nirosta stainless steel, a form of type 302.

Sources: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 - images 1 and 2 ) ( 5 - image 3 )

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t-sci-eng

7 years ago

Nontoxic underwater adhesive could bring new surgical glue

A nontoxic glue modeled after adhesive proteins produced by mussels and other creatures has been found to out-perform commercially available products, pointing toward potential surgical glues to replace sutures and staples.

More than 230 million major surgeries are performed worldwide each year, and over 12 million traumatic wounds are treated in the United States alone. About 60 percent of these wounds are closed using mechanical methods such as sutures and staples.

“Sutures and staples have several disadvantages relative to adhesives, including patient discomfort, higher risk of infection and the inherent damage to surrounding healthy tissue,” said Julie Liu, an associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Purdue University.

Most adhesives do not work well in moist environments because water interferes with the adhesion process. While developing adhesives that overcome this problem is challenging, glues for medical applications must meet an additional requirement: they must be nontoxic and biocompatible, as well.