Warp speed may actually be possible + Star Trek: Into Darkness Review + The Captains Close Up by Shatner

.. Decades after the original “Star Trek” show had gone off the air, pioneering physicist and avowed Trek fan Miguel Alcubierre argued that maybe a warp drive is possible after all. It just wouldn’t work quite the way “Star Trek” thought it did.

Things with mass can’t move faster than the speed of light. But what if, instead of the ship moving through space, the space was moving around the ship?

Space doesn’t have mass. And we know that it’s flexible: space has been expanding at a measurable rate ever since the Big Bang. We know this from observing the light of distant stars — over time, the wavelength of the stars’ light as it reaches Earth is lengthened in a process called “redshifting.” According to the Doppler effect, this means that the source of the wavelength is moving farther away from the observer — i.e. Earth.

So we know from observing redshifted light that the fabric of space is movable. [See also: What to Wear on a 100-Year Starship Voyage]

Alcubierre used this knowledge to exploit a loophole in the “universal speed limit.” In his theory, the ship never goes faster than the speed of light — instead, space in front of the ship is contracted while space behind it is expanded, allowing the ship to travel distances in less time than light would take. The ship itself remains in what Alcubierre termed a “warp bubble” and, within that bubble, never goes faster than the speed of light.

Since Alcubierre published his paper “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity” in 1994, many physicists and science fiction writers have played with his theory —including “Star Trek” itself. [See also: Top 10 Star Trek Technologies]

Alcubierre’s warp drive theory was retroactively incorporated into the “Star Trek” mythos by the 1990s TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

In a way, then, “Star Trek” created its own little grandfather paradox: Though ultimately its theory of faster-than-light travel was heavily flawed, the series established a vocabulary of light-speed travel that Alcubierre eventually formalized in his own warp drive theories.

The Alcubierre warp drive is still theoretical for now. “The truth is that the best ideas sound crazy at first. And then there comes a time when we can’t imagine a world without them.” That’s a statement from the 100 Year Starship organization, a think tank devoted to making Earth what “Star Trek” would call a “warp-capable civilization” within a century.

The first step toward a functional warp drive is to prove that a “warp bubble” is even possible, and that it can be artificially created.

That’s exactly what physicist Harold “Sonny” White and a team of researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas are doing right now.

According to Alcubierre’s theory, one could create a warp bubble by applying negative energy, or energy created in a vacuum. This process relies on the Casimir effect, which states that a vacuum is not actually a void; instead, a vacuum is actually full of fluctuating electromagnetic waves. Distorting these waves creates negative energy, which possibly distorts space-time, creating a warp bubble.

To see if space-time distortion has occurred in a lab experiment, the researchers shine two highly targeted lasers: one through the site of the vacuum and one through regular space. The researchers will then compare the two beams, and if the wavelength of the one going through the vacuum is lengthened, i.e. redshifted, in any way, they’ll know that it passed through a warp bubble. …

via Warp speed, Scotty? It may actually be possible… – Science.

I did recently see Star Trek: Into Darkness (or as I call it, the Different Wrath of a Different Khan) the day it came out, but I’ve been holding off on writing my review. As a long time fan of the series, I’m a bit embarrassed to say that, well, truth be told, I enjoyed Iron Man 3 more.

After plenty of thought, I’ve boiled it down to three things. First, a major element missing from this latest Star Trek was a Captain with a wry sense of humor.  This Kirk still seemed like a too serious boy to me, plenty of the bravado but missing the sense of ease and humor that made Bill Shatner the best Kirk so far. There were some great and moments like Sulu’s bluff, great stunts, great CG and an interesting villain. Second, the rewrites of events from the original series just didn’t seem right. They were at times out of character for the characters. Spock yelling “Khaaaaaaan,” for example, was totally illogical.  This was fun and funny for long time fans, but was something you’d expect from a Saturday Night Live spoof rather than an addition to the Trek Legacy. It was playful fun, sure, but it took me out of the story and made me focus on the producers/writers rather than keeping me engaged in an enjoyable story. Third, the pace was off somehow. I can’t put my finger on it, but the ride from wild action to peaceful relief was just not enjoyable.

Anyway, speaking of different Trek captains, check this out:

EPIX has announced the premiere of William Shatner’s new Star Trek themed mini-series, The Captains Close Up on May 16^th.  The premiere is part of EPIX’ “Trekkie Fest,” an entire night of programming related to Paramount’s latest Star Trek Into Darkness, opening on May 16^th.  Also screening on EPIX will be Shatner’s feature documentary on the world of Star Trek fandom; William Shatner’s Get a Life.

The Captains Close Up is a five-episode miniseries, directed by and featuring William Shatner.  Each episode focuses on one of the Captains of Star Trek:Sir Patrick Stewart, Scott Bakula, Kate Mulgrew, Avery Brooks and of course, William Shatner, himself.  Chris Pine, the newest Enterprise Captain, turns the tables to interview the original Captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner, and the two “Captain James T. Kirks” compare notes about love, life and family.

William Shatner speaks with each of the Captains of the Starship USS Enterprise for an up close interview of their life after Star Trek.  Each half-hour is an intimate portrayal of these talented actors and includes interviews from the biggest names in the world of Star Trek including; Jonathan Frakes, Walter Koenig, Michael Dorn, Rene Auberjonois, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Robert Beltran, Ron Moore, Terry Farrell, Nana Visitor and Ira Steven Behr, to name a few.

The Captains Close Up miniseries is the 9^th production with William Shatner from 455 Films and Love Lake Productions in association with Le Big Boss Productions. Shatner also serves as producer, along with Kevin Layne and David Zappone.  Joseph Kornbrodt and Helene Layne serve as associate producers.  Premium network EPIX is owned by Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM.

This Subterranean Telescope May Have Just Seen Humanity’s First Cosmic Neutrino

Catching a glimpse of even regular neutrinos – low-energy particles generated in the atmosphere – is difficult enough, but spotting a “cosmic neutrino” left over from the Big Bang has been downright impossible. That is until this cubic kilometer buried under Antartica’s frozen wastes started looking.

Known as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, this $279 million telescope is located under the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Since its completion in 2010, IceCube has been searching for evidence of the cosmic neutrino via an array of thousands of sensors hung in cascading lines under the ice.

Just as its predecessor, the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), did, IceCube consists of spherical optical sensors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), each with a photomultiplier tube (PMT). In all, 86 strings containing 60 DOMs apiece and a total of 5,160 PMTs have been hung a depths ranging from 1,450 to 2,450 meters. IceCube researchers leveraged a unique hot water drill to quickly bore through the ice when installing the array.

When a weakly-interacting neutrino does manage to strike the nucleus of an atom in the ice, the resulting energy release creates a brief flash that is picked up by the DOM and transmitted to a data collection station on the surface. The system detects roughly 100,000 neutrino strikes annually but, until last month, all of them were of the atmospheric variety. In April, IceCube detected a pair of strikes – nicknamed Bert and Ernie – with energy signatures in the TeV range, suggesting an extraterrestrial origin. Since then, the system has spotted an additional 26 potential cosmic neutrino strikes.

The data must still be analyzed and verified by the scientific community but if these really are what researchers think they are, we could soon gain new insight into conditions present mere seconds after the Big Bang.

http://gizmodo.com/this-subterranean-telescope-may-have-just-seen-humanit-507516289

“More Complex than a Galaxy” – New Insights into the Human Brain

“Consider the human brain,” says the physicist Sir Roger Penrose. “If you look at the entire physical cosmos, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they’re the most perfectly organized part. Compared to the complexity of a brain, a galaxy is just an inert lump.”

In a new study, scientists argue that many of our high-level abilities are carried out by more extensive brain networks linking many different areas of the brain. They suggest it may be the structure of these extended networks more than the size of any isolated brain region that is critical for cognitive functioning. The frontal lobes in humans vs. other species are not – as previously thought – disproportionately enlarged relative to other areas of the brain, according to a study by Durham and Reading universities.It concludes that the size of our frontal lobes – an area in the brain of mammals located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere – cannot solely account for humans’ superior cognitive abilities.

The study also suggest that supposedly more “primitive” areas, such as the cerebellum, were equally important in the expansion of the human brain. These areas may therefore play unexpectedly important roles in human cognition and its disorders, such as autism and dyslexia, say the researchers.

The Durham and Reading researchers, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, analyzed data sets from previous animal and human studies using phylogenetic (“evolutionary family tree”) methods, and found consistent results across all their data. They used a new method to look at the speed with which evolutionary change occurred, concluding that the frontal lobes did not evolve especially fast along the human lineage after it split from the chimpanzee lineage.

Human brains share a consistent genetic blueprint, and possess enormous biochemical complexity, they said, based on the first deep and large-scale analysis of the vast data set publicly available in the Allen Human Brain Atlas. Among other findings, these data show that 84% of all genes are expressed somewhere in the human brain and in patterns that are substantially similar from one brain to the next. …

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/05/more-complex-than-a-galaxy-new-insights-into-the-human-brain.html

If it occurred to you that our galaxy contains all of the known brains in the Universe, and that it is logically impossible for any part to be come complicated than the whole, then you pass the test and most likely have a brain.

New Method of Finding Planets Scores First Discovery

“Einstein’s planet,” formally known as Kepler-76b, is a “hot Jupiter” that orbits its star every 1.5 days. Its diameter is about 25 percent larger than Jupiter and it weighs twice as much. This artist’s conception shows Kepler-76b orbiting its host star, which has been tidally distorted into a slight football shape (exaggerated here for effect). The planet was detected using the BEER algorithm, which looked for brightness changes in the star as the planet orbits due to relativistic BEaming, Ellipsoidal variations, and Reflected light from the planet.

Astronomers have found a new exoplanet for the first time using a method that relies on physicist Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. These distant worlds are usually discovered by looking for stars that wobble or that dim, and identifying the orbiting planets that cause those effects.

The newly-discovered planet – formally known as Kepler-76b – was detected from three small effects that occur simultaneously as it orbits its star. One is subtle changes in the star’s brightness as the planet’s gravitational field causes shifts in the speed and direction of its light, as seen from Earth. This is known as Einstein’s “beaming” effect.

The scientists at Tel Aviv University and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics also looked for signs the star was physically deformed by the planet’s gravitational tides, and for reflected starlight from the planet itself.

Kepler-76b is about 25 percent larger than Jupiter and it weighs twice as much. It is located about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

The new planet-hunting technique cannot find Earth-sized worlds with current technology, but Avi Loeb, who first proposed the method, said it adds to astronomers’ arsenal as they continue to scour the cosmos for planets that might support life as we know it….

http://www.voanews.com/content/new-method-of-finding-planets-scores-first-discovery/1660802.html

Sun fires off third and most powerful flare in 24 hours

… In a day’s time, the sun uncorked three X-class solar flares – all stronger than any others this calendar year.
The grand finale, which peaked at 9:11 p.m. EDT Monday night, was the most intense – an X3.2-class eruption. The flare packed the energy “equivalent to millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs” writes Discover’s Tom Yulsman. It ranks as the third strongest flare of the current solar cycle, which began February 15, 2011, taking the spot of the second flare in the sequence (which now ranks 4th strongest).

Via NASA: “Four images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory of an X3.2-class flare from late at night on May 13, 2013. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, the images show light in the 304-, 335-, 193- and 131-angstrom wavelengths. By looking at the sun in different wavelengths, scientists can view solar material at different temperatures, and thus learn more about what causes flares.”…

The ratings of the three successive flares were X1.7, X.2.8, and X3.2. These X-class flares are the strongest variety, and an X3 is three times as strong as an X1. (The other flares categories are M-class, which are medium strength, and C-class, which are small and relatively weak.)

A blast of solar wind known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) was associated with all three flares. Of the third CMENASA writes: Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the sun at approximately 1,400 miles per second, which is particularly fast for a CME. The models suggest that it will catch up to the two CMEs associated with the earlier flares.

None of the flares or associated CMEs were pointed at Earth, so disruptions to satellite communications and the power grid are not expected. However, the CMEs may be on a path to affect NASA’s Epoxi and Spitzer spacecrafts on May 15-16….

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/14/sun-fires-off-third-and-most-powerful-flare-in-24-hours/

Astronaut sings Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ in zero gravity

Chris Hadfield has conquered space. Now he’s conquering the Internet, too.

A video of the Canadian astronaut singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from the International Space Station has been zipping around the Web at light speed since it was posted Sunday. The five-minute clip features Hadfield singing a modified version of the tune and strumming an acoustic guitar while floating through a space module, more than 200 miles above the Earth.

By Monday morning, it had more than 1 million views on YouTube, 3,000 comments on Reddit and was being widely shared across social networks.

Hadfield already was something of a social media star, with 260,000 fans on Facebook and more than 825,000 followers on Twitter. During his five months aboard the International Space Station, he has posted numerous photos and videos of himself preparing meals, brushing his teeth and explaining how to vomit in space.

But the elegant “Space Oddity” video, reportedly months in the making, may rocket him into a higher orbit. Hadfield’s earnest voice and unique perch in space brings a moving immediacy to Bowie’s verses, and when he sings, “I’m floating in a most peculiar way” while actually floating, it’s a powerful moment.

Because Hadfield’s vocals and guitar were recorded on the space station (and mixed with supporting tracks by Emm Gryner, a Canadian musician who once sang backup for Bowie), some observers are calling it the first music video made in space.

Commenters on Reddit praised the video’s simplicity and genuineness.

“The floating guitar is really floating, it’s not some computer animation or trickery. The Earth turning behind him in the windows is the real deal. That’s us, that’s our blue dot, not some stock image, or animation …,” wrote one Redditor. “The video has none of the Hollywood fakery we are used to. Its power comes from this authenticity.”

Hadfield took a few liberties with the lyrics of the 1969 Bowie song, which became a hit upon its 1973 rerelease. In the original song, Ground Control loses radio contact with the astronaut, Major Tom, implying that the mission has failed. But Hadfield omits that part.

Bowie himself acknowledged the video, tweeting, “CHRIS HADFIELD SINGS SPACE ODDITY IN SPACE!”

The 53-year-old Hadfield launched aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in December and in March became the first Canadian to lead a spaceship as commander of the International Space Station. The video clip is a farewell of sorts: He is due to depart the space station Monday night and return to Earth.

via Astronaut sings Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ in zero gravity – CNN.com.

Micrometeorite Hits the International Space Station, Punching a Bullet Hole

Space is a dangerous place. It’s not just the lack of oxygen or gravity; the biggest threat, at least in low Earth orbit, is micrometeorites and other debris that circle our planet at very high speeds.

At several kilometers (miles) per second, or faster, even small objects pack a punch, so much so that they can pierce through the International Space Station.

There is so much debris and micrometeorites floating around in space that impact is inevitable. In fact, one just hit the ISS though, thankfully, it just pierced through the solar panels. ISS Commander Chris Hadfield provided the Twitter evidence.

It did leave a bullet hole though as a reminder of what might happen if one were to hit the hull.

Luckily, the ISS’ hull is made up of multiple layers designed to contain and slow down debris so that it doesn’t pierce through. The ISS also navigates around areas where large quantities of debris are known to exist.

via Micrometeorite Hits the International Space Station, Punching a Bullet Hole.

Ring of fire annular eclipse May 9-10, 2013

Never peer directly at the sun – even through clouds – at any time. The sun is so blindingly bright that, unless it’s completely blocked by the moon during a total solar eclipse, it can permanently damage your eyes. The eclipse happening today (May 9 for those east of the International Date Line; May 10 for those west of it) is essentially a partial eclipse in that the sun will not ever be completely covered by the moon. Instead, at mid-eclipse, a thin ring of the sun’s outer surface will appear in a circle around the silhouetted moon, to those standing along the eclipse path running through Australia and the Pacific Ocean. You will need to watch online or use a safe filter or projection technique, to view the May 9-10 solar eclipse.
http://earthsky.org/todays-image/a-ring-of-fire-or-annular-eclipse-from-2012

Meet the thousands of people ready to die on Mars

Mars One is a private space mission that hopes to send a group of people to Mars in a decade and leave them there to foster the first human colony. It has received endorsement and support from the likes of Gerard ’t Hooft, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. But it has also been criticized on several counts, including treating a serious life-threatening scenario as a reality show for the purposes of monetization and seeking funding while being glib about nearly all the practical details.

Before applicants even get to see the application, they must pay an application fee of around $38 USD (the price varies depending on country of residence). They fill out a public-facing profile and answer several private questions about achievements and awards, incidents that have frightened or stressed them out and how they dealt with them, personality types they find difficult to handle, and how they deal with cultures other than their own. To date, 30,000 other Red Planet hopefuls have applied.

“I want to see the sun rise over a completely new horizon, in a completely new sky. I think that’s worth any price,” wrote Erica Meszaros, another Mars One applicant, in her personal essay.

Meszaros is a software developer by trade and interned with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. She states that astronauts are traditionally chosen “from the Air Force” or—more recently, with the success of $200,000 per flight projects like Virgin Galactic—from “those with deep pockets.”

Part of Mars One’s pitch has been that much of the technology for traveling to and maintaining residence on Mars already exists; it’s just a matter of marshaling resources and initiative to get there. Both Hamm and Meszaros echoed this sentiment. Despite being publicly vague on the details, Mars One leaders maintain that they know the cost of the mission ($6 billion) and that it can all be assembled and launched in 10 years.

All applicants make a video as part of their public facing profile discussing, in brief, why they want to or are suited for a mission to Mars. “I have a great sense of humor, so I really get along with everybody,” said Francisco, a 32 year-old Argentinian man who works in “the commercial area at a plastic containers factory.”

“I’ve got a feeling that I don’t belong here, but out there,” said Anders, a 51-year-old Swedish man who has the most popular profile on the site. “What makes me the perfect candidate? Well, I’m single. I’m flexible.”

“I believe that the challenge that I’m putting up with everybody… If anybody can challenge me with the knowledge and all the things that I can do, then I give up, but if not, I would like to be the first one to go,” said Vasile Sofroni, a 54-year-old Romanian man with the second most popular profile.

via Meet the thousands of people ready to die on Mars | Ars Technica.

Russian researchers find more evidence to support notion that lightning is caused by cosmic rays

Russian physicists Alex Gurevich and Anatoly Karashtin claim, in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, they have found more evidence to support their idea that lightning is caused by cosmic rays. The notion was first proposed by Gurevich back in 1992, and has been a source of debate ever since.

No one really knows what causes lightning to form and strike—the prevailing view is that it comes about as a result of collisions between ice crystals in clouds and hail stones. But because clouds and the lightning they produce are unpredictable and hard to pin down, no one has been able to prove this theory. Another theory, proposed by Gurevich twenty years ago, says that lightning is formed from the collisions between cosmic rays and water droplets present in thunderclouds. Now he and a colleague claim to have found evidence to support this idea.

Gurevich suggests that cosmic rays entering thunder clouds cause the air in them to be ionized, resulting in a lot of free electrons floating around. The electronic field already present in the cloud, he continues, leads to the free electrons being boosted to higher energies. When the electrons present in the air collide with water atoms, more electrons are released, setting off what he describes as an avalanche of high-energy particles that eventually give way to a “runaway breakdown”—a discharge that is witnessed as a lightning strike.

As with other theories regarding the origins of lightning, Gurevich’s ideas haven’t been proved. But he hasn’t been sitting still. In this new effort, he along with Karashtin have been measuring and analyzing radio waves in storm clouds as lightning occurs. The idea is that if such strikes are due to interactions with cosmic rays, there should be measurable amounts of radio waves given off.

Gurevich and Karashtin set up equipment to monitor storm clouds over Russia and Kazakhstan—recording radio waves emitted during 3,800 lightning strikes. In analyzing the data, they found that hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of short radio wave pulses occurred just as a bolt of lightning was about to form. Perhaps more importantly, they matched the models Gurevich had built years before. There was on hitch however, the amount of energy delivered by the cosmic rays in the model don’t happen often enough in the real world to cause lightning strikes in most every thunderstorm.

Gurevich and Karashtin say the discrepancy can be explained by the addition of energy into the system by free electrons passing near hydrometeors (bits of hail or water droplets). When that happens, very small discharges result, adding to the total charge. Taken together they say, enough energy is added to cause the cascade that leads to lightning formation.

via Russian researchers find more evidence to support notion that lightning is caused by cosmic rays.