New rocket aims for cheaper nudges in space – MIT News Office

Satellites orbiting the Earth must occasionally be nudged to stay on the correct path. MIT scientists are developing a new rocket that could make this and other spacecraft maneuvers much less costly, a consideration of growing importance as more private companies start working in space.

The new system, called the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster, is much smaller than other rockets of its kind and runs on gases that are much less expensive than conventional propellants. As a result, it could slash fuel consumption by 10 times that of conventional systems used for the same applications, says Oleg Batishchev, a principal research scientist in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and leader of the work.

… engineers have been developing alternative, non-chemical rockets. In these, an external source of electrical energy is used to accelerate the propellant that provides the thrust for moving a craft through space.

Such non-chemical rockets have been successfully used by NASA and the European Space Agency in missions including NASA’s Deep Space 1, which involved the flyby of a comet and asteroid.

But the field is still relatively new, and these advanced rockets are one focus of the MIT Space Propulsion Laboratory (SPL). “The Mini-Helicon is one exciting example of the sorts of thrusters one can devise using external electrical energy instead of the locked-in chemical energy,” says Manuel Martinez-Sanchez, director of the SPL and a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The Mini-Helicon is the first rocket to run on nitrogen, the most abundant gas in our atmosphere.

It was conceived through work with former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz ScD ’77 on a much larger, more powerful system developed by Chang-Diaz. Batishchev’s team did a theoretical analysis showing that the first of three parts of the larger rocket could potentially be used alone for different applications.

The idea “was that a rocket based on the first stage [of Chang-Diaz's system] could be small and simple, for more economical applications,” says Batishchev, who notes that the team’s prototype would fit in a large shoe box.

Since then, 12 MIT students have worked on the Mini-Helicon, resulting in one PhD and four master’s theses to date. Batishchev notes, however, that it could be years before the technology can be used commercially, in part due to certification policies through NASA and other agencies.

The Mini-Helicon has three general parts: a quartz tube wrapped by a coiled antenna, with magnets surrounding both. The gas of interest is pumped into the quartz tube, where radio frequency power transmitted to the gas from the antenna turns the gas into plasma, or electrically charged gas.

The magnets not only help produce the plasma, but also confine, guide and accelerate it through the system. “The plasma beam exhausted from the tube is what gives us the thrust to propel the rocket,” Batishchev says.

He noted that the exhaust velocity from the new rocket is some 10 times higher than the velocity from the average chemical rocket, so much less propellant is needed. …

Batishchev notes that last summer, for fun, his team built a plasma rocket based on a glass bottle (a stand-in for the quartz tube) and an aluminum can (the radio-frequency antenna), both of which previously held soft drinks. It worked. “This shows that this is a robust, simple design. So in principle, an even simpler design could be developed,” he says.

via New rocket aims for cheaper nudges in space – MIT News Office.

New Galaxy Formation Theory Proposed

Astrophysicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have formulated a novel theory that takes issue with the prevailing view on the origin of galaxies. Their research, which was recently published in the journal Nature, concludes that the galaxies primarily formed as a result of intensive cosmic streams of cold gas (mostly hydrogen) and not as a result of galactic mergers. In fact, the scientists say that these mergers “had only limited influence on the cosmological makeup of the universe as we know it.” …

The scientists turned to computer simulations, which were carried out using one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, in hopes to accurately simulate how galaxies formed in the early universe. The resulting model suggests that galaxy formation is a direct result of a continuous flow of cold gas along a few narrow streams, not a by-product of mergers. “These gas streams follow the filaments of the ‘cosmic web’ that defines the large-scale structure of matter in the universe, filaments that feed the dark-matter halos in the first place. These cold gas streams penetrate through the dark-matter halo of each galaxy and the hot gas that fills it and reach the center, where they become a rotating disk. These disks, each subject to its own, local, gravitational forces, break into a few giant clumps in which the gas converts into stars very efficiently” – explained the researchers.

via New Galaxy Formation Theory Proposed.

Solar calendar secret revealed in Suffolk church

Every year thousands of revellers flock to watch dawn break on the summer and winter solstices at Stonehenge, which Druids believe is a temple to the alignment of the sun.

Although no-one knows the reason behind the prehistoric stone circle in Wiltshire, it is widely accepted its design was such that it would mark the longest and shortest days of the year.

Now a mysterious spectacle which appears to honour the two other most significant days in the solar calendar has been discovered in a Suffolk church. This year’s spring equinox – when the day and night are of equal length – will shed light on a religious statue and with it an extraordinary secret that remained hidden for hundreds of years.

Weather permitting, for just four minutes on March 20 a beam of evening sunlight will filter through a small window at Barsham Church, near Beccles, and bathe a sculpture of Christ on the Cross in a golden light.

It is a phenomenon that was only recently rediscovered by a vicar after being hidden for centuries because the sculpture, also known as the rood, was taken down. It may date back as far as the 1300s when the window was built.

The Rev John Buchanan discovered it in the early 1990s, but has only recently been able to make sense of it after recording its occurrence over a number of years.

This year he predicts that the entire rood will be directly lit on March 20, while the preceding day and the following day will see the figure partially lit. The phenomenon is repeated at the autumn equinox in September.

“To actually see it was a matter of luck,” said Mr Buchanan. “You have to go in there at the right time and there’s got to be no cloud. That’s why it’s taken myself and others such a long time to find it.

“I’m a curious sort of guy and my immediate thought was that it wasn’t by chance – I thought, ‘what sort of event does it mark?’ So I went through the church calendar, and it got terribly complicated because in the 1600s they shifted it from Julian to Gregorian. But I realised that the one thing that would stay the same is the equinox.”

He added: “It’s a sort of camera obscura effect like at Stonehenge.”

There is nothing in the record books about the phenomenon, although Mr Buchanan believes that the window and statue were positioned by design because the window is conspicuously off-centre. …

via EDP24 – Solar calendar secret revealed in Suffolk church.

Psychedelic fish ‘is new species’

A brightly-coloured fish which bounces along the seabed has been hailed as a new species by scientists – who have dubbed it “psychedelica”.

Research published in the US scientific journal Copeia says the fish was spotted by scuba divers off the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia.

It belongs to the frogfish family, but its looks are unique even among its peers, the journal reported.

The question with this new discovery is how it went unnoticed for so long.

The new psychedelica frogfish is completely covered in swirling concentric stripes – white and blue on a peach background – radiating out from its aqua-coloured eyes.

It has a broad flat face, thick fleshy cheeks and chin, and eyes that look forward like a human’s.

The fish was spotted by divers off the coast of Ambon island last year.

The divers described it moving away from them in a series of short hops, its pelvic fins pushing it off the sea bed with each bounce.

“The overall impression” says the Copeia research paper, was of “an inflated rubber ball bouncing along the bottom”.

The species was first discovered almost 20 years ago, but sat on a shelf – wrongly labelled and gathering dust – until this most recent find.

It came to light when the divers were unable to identify the fish from photographs circulated among their colleagues, and sent pictures to a frogfish expert at the University of Washington.

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Psychedelic fish ‘is new species’.

How would you like to meet a person with a face like that in a dark alley?

Ex-Astronaut: Global Warming Is Bunk

Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.

“I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect,” said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.

Schmitt contends that scientists “are being intimidated” if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.

“They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming,” Schmitt said.

Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the “global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making.”

Williams said Heartland is skeptical about the crisis that people are proclaiming in global warming.

“Not that the planet hasn’t warmed. We know it has or we’d all still be in the Ice Age,” he said. “But it has not reached a crisis proportion and, even among us skeptics, there’s disagreement about how much man has been responsible for that warming.”

Schmitt said historical documents indicate average temperatures have risen by 1 degree per century since around 1400 A.D., and the rise in carbon dioxide is because of the temperature rise.

Schmitt also said geological evidence indicates changes in sea level have been going on for thousands of years. He said smaller changes are related to changes in the elevation of land masses — for example, the Great Lakes are rising because the earth’s crust is rebounding from being depressed by glaciers.

Schmitt, who grew up in Silver City and now lives in Albuquerque, has a science degree from the California Institute of Technology. He also studied geology at the University of Oslo in Norway and took a doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.

In 1972, he was one of the last men to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission.

Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.

Of the global warming debate, he said: “It’s one of the few times you’ve seen a sizable portion of scientists who ought to be objective take a political position and it’s coloring their objectivity.”

via How Green » Blog Archive » Ex-Astronaut: Global Warming Is Bunk.

There is a lot of data and there is a correct answer. Why is there still debate?  Is it because the system has many variables and is complicated? Is it because we as a species are wishful thinkers who refuse to  face an ugly reality? Whatever the correct answer, the  current uncertainty shows that our methods of sharing  scientific data remain inadequate.  When I have time, I hope to dig in and look at the details of the arguments on both sides. More on Schmitt:

Schmitt, a geologist, was the first (and to date, only) scientist to walk on the Moon. …

“Ah! You see one Earth, you’ve seen them all.”

– Jack Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot. -  wikipedia

1.5 Million-Year-Old Human Footprints Found

Early humans had feet like ours and left lasting impressions in the form of 1.5 million-year-old footprints some of which were made by feet that could wear a size 9 men s shoe. The findings at a Northern Kenya site represent the oldest evidence of modern-human foot anatomy. They also help tell an ancestral story of humans who had fully transitioned from tree-dwellers to land walkers. “In a sense it s like putting flesh on the bones ” said John Harris an anthropologist with the Koobi Fora Field School of Rutgers University.

“The prints are so well preserved.” Almost human Harris and other colleagues report in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science on finding several footprint trails within two sedimentary rock layers. An upper sedimentary layer included two trails of two prints each one group of seven prints and a variety of isolated prints. The lower layer had a trail of two prints and a single isolated print likely from a smaller juvenile human. The researchers identified the footprints as probably belonging to a member of Homo ergaster an early form of Homo erectus. Such prints include modern foot features such as a rounded heel a human-like arch and a big toe that sits parallel to other toes. By contrast apes have more curved fingers and toes made for grasping tree branches. The earliest human ancestors such as Australopithecus afarensis still possessed many ape-like features more than 2 million years ago — the well-known “Lucy” specimen represents one such example.

via FOXNews.com – 1.5 Million-Year-Old Human Footprints Found – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News.

Images that show the inside of breaking waves

Photographer Clark Little has dedicated his life to film the world s ultimate waves and has now published his favourite shots of all time. Clark 39 swims in terrifying seas and crouches on shorelines with his waterproof camera to capture rarely seen views from inside a tube – a breaking wave. He has now unveiled this set of images which he says are the best he has ever taken and epitomise the world s deadliest surf. Many of his  photographs are shot at Waimea Bay in Hawaii – the home of surfing and immortalised in the lyrics of the Beach Boys song Surfin USA . They show perfect arcs of water and crystal “caverns” which are turned into a kaleidoscope of colour by sand and rays of sunlight.

via Images that show the inside of breaking waves – Telegraph.

Gallery here.

Kids ‘crossing croc-infested waters’ to get to school in Northern Territory

CLAIMS children from a remote Aboriginal community must walk through a crocodile-infested billabong to get to school will be investigated the Northern Territory Government. A caller from Palumpa about 375km southwest of Darwin said on ABC radio that students brave the dangerous waterway every day of the wet season. The caller said a ferry service had in the past been used to get the children to school but was cancelled because it was considered too dangerous. NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson today said it “was the first I ve heard of that”. But he said he d look into the claims and “would get right onto” them as a matter of priority.

via Kids ‘crossing croc-infested waters’ to get to school in Northern Territory | National News | News.com.au.

Nano origami – Know when to fold ‘em

Folding paper into shapes such as a crane or a butterfly is challenging enough for most people. Now imagine trying to fold something that’s about a hundred times thinner than a human hair and then putting it to use as an electronic device.

A team of researchers led by George Barbastathis, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is developing the basic principles of “nano-origami,” a new technique that allows engineers to fold nanoscale materials into simple 3-D structures. The tiny folded materials could be used as motors and capacitors, potentially leading to better computer memory storage, faster microprocessors and new nanophotonic devices.

Traditional micro- and nano-fabrication techniques such as X-ray lithography and nano-imprinting work beautifully for two-dimensional structures, and are commonly used to build microprocessors and other micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) devices. However, they cannot create 3-D structures.

“A lot of what s done now is planar ” says Tony Nichol a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project. “We want to take all of the nice tools that have been developed for 2-D and do 3-D things.” The MIT team uses conventional lithography tools to pattern 2-D materials at the nanoscale then folds them into predetermined 3-D shapes opening a new realm of possible applications.

via Knowing when to fold – MIT News Office.

Ponari & His Magic Healing Stone

The magical faith healing stone of young boy Ponari is big business for a small village in East Java.

A month ago Ponari was hit by lightning, according to his story. When he regained consciousness there was a stone on top of his head. He threw it away but the stone came back so he took it home. There he discovered the healing effects of the stone: a neighbour healed of fever after he had touched it, the village head got rid of a bad pain in his arm and the local police officer, a pious Muslim, swears he has seen with his own eyes how Ponari healed a boy who had not spoken a single word for five years.

The news about the miraculous healings spread quickly and people started to flood to the small village of Balongsari, a few hours drive from Surabaya. First dozens, then hundreds, and now there are thousands. They bring cups, bottles and buckets of water in which the boy wonder plunges his stone. This allegedly turns the water into a powerful panacea. Ponari is carried around by his father. He looks tired.

A party tent protects him against the sun. There are barriers of bamboo put down to control the crowd. This has already led to accidents: four people have been trampled to death and an unknown number got injured. And also the healing doesn’t work that well. A child of three died after his parents had given him wonder water instead of taking him to a doctor. The media are interviewing more and more people who have been drinking the miracle water but didn’t notice anything. Hamzah (53) says that his eyes are just as bad as before. Such information may not deter visitors. They keep on flooding to the village. …

via Ponari & His Magic Healing Stone.

Wishful thinking is a common and sometimes dangerous human mental blind spot.