Researchers have been teasing the concept of sending a life-sniffing drone to Saturn’s moon Titan for what seems like forever, and now, it appears that this is finally going to happen. Citing a public statement released just this past week by NASA, the American space agency announced its plans to move forward with project ‘Dragonfly,’ a mission that would ultimately fly an autonomous miniature helicopter around at various sites on Titan in an effort to study the world’s habitability and search for traces of alien life. Image Credit: NASA/JHU-APL Titan has long captivated the minds of astronomers and planetary scientists alike because, like Earth, it harbors a particularly dense nitrogen-based atmosphere with heavy traces of methane gas; moreover, Titan is believed to harbor surface oceans. The thick atmosphere there would make flying something like Dragonfly possible, and upon making its many stops, it could grab surface samples and snap all sorts of pictures. Related: Does Titan have the right chemistry to support alien life? No one knows what project Dragonfly might find on Titan when it arrives, and for what it’s worth, it will still be a while before we find out. According to NASA, the mission won’t launch until 2026, and based on the time it takes to get a spacecraft to the Saturnine system from Earth, the mission wouldn’t arrive at Titan until 2034 – a solid 15 years from now. “With the Dragonfly mission, NASA will once again do what no one else can do,” NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said in the statement. “Visiting this mysterious ocean world could revolutionize what we know about life in the universe. This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we’re now ready for Dragonfly’s amazing flight.” It's worth noting that Dragonfly is poised to become the first multi-rotor vehicle to visit another world in our solar system, and NASA expects that the mission will last at least 2.7 years, if not longer. The drone would use its onboard instruments to analyze various elements of the distant world, including crater floors, vast sand dunes, and much more. Related: Titan experiences dust storms much like Earth and Mars do “Titan is unlike any other place in the solar system, and Dragonfly is like no other mission,” added Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for Science. “It’s remarkable to think of this rotorcraft flying miles and miles across the organic sand dunes of Saturn’s largest moon, exploring the processes that shape this extraordinary environment. Dragonfly will visit a world filled with a wide variety of organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life and could teach us about the origin of life itself.” Without a shadow of a doubt, the Dragonfly mission holds significant potential to tell us about Titan’s habitability and whether life can exist elsewhere in the solar system. Assuming planetary scientists are right, then Titan just might have what it takes to pull this off. It should be interesting to see what it finds. Source: NASA
Today is officially designated as Pluto Demoted Day, which commemorates when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted on August 24, 2006 to rewrite the definition of a planet, resulting in Pluto being demoted from full-fledged planet to dwarf planet. This move was met with heavy criticism from both the scientific community and general public, resulting in nationwide protests taking place to denounce the demotion. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker The new definition from the IAU states a planet much possess three criteria: 1) It needs to orbit a star, 2) Its size must result in enough gravity to form it into a spherical shape, and 3) Its size must result in its gravity also clearing away other similar-sized objects within its orbit. While Pluto met the first two criteria, it was the third one that doomed it as a full-fledged planet, with both the definition and Pluto’s status holding to this day. The reason why Pluto doesn’t meet the third criteria is because it still has many asteroids and other objects within its orbit that it never gobbled up during its formation. This is also because Pluto resides within the Kuiper Belt, which is a region comprised of icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune. This region is estimated to contain hundreds of thousands of icy bodies with diameters potentially exceeding 62 miles (100 kilometers), and another trillion-plus comets that are also estimated to be there, as well. In short, the Kuiper Belt is a much larger version of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. Pluto was discovered in February 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by Clyde W. Tombaugh. While ground-based telescopes were able to show it as a point of light, very little was ever known about Pluto until more powerful telescopes slowly discovered it had moons, which currently stands at five: Charon, Hydra, Kerberos, Nix, and Styx. For over 75 years, Pluto proudly stood as a full-fledged planet, until astronomers began discovering other similarly-sized objects throughout the solar system, specifically Eris and Ceres, and the definition of a planet started to be questioned. This was when the IAU voted in 2006 to rewrite the definition of a planet, causing Pluto, Eris, and Ceres to be reclassified as dwarf planets. While the flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons revealed both new and startling details about this intriguing world that orbits far from the Sun, Pluto still stands as one of a handful of dwarf planets within our solar system, and there’s no indication this will change anytime soon. As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: National Today, International Astronomical Union, New Scientist, International Astronomical Union (1), NASA, Library of Congress, NASA (1), NASA (2)
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found something really strange inside a star system 1,200 light years away. The host star, a huge red giant named V-Hyrade, is dying. But that’s not what makes it interesting. Rather, NASA says they’ve observed huge plasma ‘cannonballs’ being ejected from the star at extremely fast rates of speed, and the findings appear in The Astrophysical Journal. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI) These plasma balls are reportedly twice the size of Mars and are extremely hot. They’re moving so quickly that it would only take only 30 minutes for one to travel from Earth to the Moon, a distance of 238,900 miles. Explaining what’s causing these plasma balls to shoot into space is proving to be the real challenge. This isn’t something astronomers see all the time, but careful observations may explain what’s really going on here. The first thing we have to remember is that red giants are not powerful stars like they once were. At this stage in their life, they’re dying and losing their nuclear fuel needed to continue going on, so it’s hard to say where these powerful balls of energy are coming from. One idea is that this is actually a binary star system, and a companion star might be orbiting V-Hyrade in a type of elliptical motion that swings around the red giant’s atmosphere in such a way that it’s causing these plasma balls. This theory comes from the fact that astronomers have dated this activity as far back as 1986. "We knew this object had a high-speed outflow from previous data, but this is the first time we are seeing this process in action," said Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and lead author of the study. "We suggest that these gaseous blobs produced during this late phase of a star's life help make the structures seen in planetary nebulae." These super-heated energy blobs are about twice as hot as the surface of the Sun, at approximately 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As soon as they get into space, they start to cool and expand before they’re no longer viewable in the visible light spectrum. Sahai also suggests a model of a companion star with an accretion disk, which could explain the plasma balls entirely. “This model provides the most plausible explanation because we know that the engines that produce jets are accretion disks,” Sahai explained in the statement. “Red giants don't have accretion disks, but many most likely have companion stars, which presumably have lower masses because they are evolving more slowly. The model we propose can help explain the presence of bipolar planetary nebulae, the presence of knotty jet-like structures in many of these objects, and even multipolar planetary nebulae. We think this model has very wide applicability.” "This accretion disk engine is very stable because it has been able to launch these structures for hundreds of years without falling apart," Sahai continued. "In many of these systems, the gravitational attraction can cause the companion to actually spiral into the core of the red giant star. Eventually, though, the orbit of V Hydrae's companion will continue to decay because it is losing energy in this frictional interaction. However, we do not know the ultimate fate of this companion." Although it seems V-Hydrae has been doing this for a long time, there’s still no direct evidence that this theory is 100% spot-on. Nevertheless, it’s the best theory we have so far. The only way to learn more is to continue to study the system and hope that more clues pop up out of the wood works. Source: NASA/JPL
Oil-consuming microbes have been discovered in the deepest part of the oceans of Earth - the Mariana Trench. A comprehensive assessment of the microbial life there, which is around 11,000 meters deep, revealed bacteria that can break down hydrocarbons, molecules that are part of natural fuels like crude oil. The findings have been reported in Microbiome and are outlined in the video. "We know more about Mars than the deepest part of the ocean," said the study leader Professor Xiao-Hua Zhang of the Ocean University in China. Located in the Western Pacific, a journey to the trench presents massive logistical challenges. National Geographic notes that while thousands of people had scaled Mt Everest successfully, only two people had gone to the Trench. The pressure down there is one thousand times more than standard atmospheric pressure at sea level, it is always dark, and it’s just a few degrees more than freezing. "Our research team went down to collect samples of the microbial population at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench - some 11,000 meters down. We studied the samples that were brought back and identified a new group of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria,” said Dr. Jonathan Todd of the University of East Anglia’s (UAE) School of Biological Sciences. "Hydrocarbons are organic compounds that are made of only hydrogen and carbon atoms, and they are found in many places, including crude oil and natural gas. So these types of microorganisms essentially eat compounds similar to those in oil and then use it for fuel. Similar microorganisms play a role in degrading oil spills in natural disasters such as BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We also found that this bacteria is really abundant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench," he added. The Trench was found to contain the biggest proportion of bacteria that break down hydrocarbons on the planet. The scientists raised some of these bacteria in the laboratory, simulating the Trench’s environment, and found that the microbes could degrade hydrocarbons; they consume them to get energy. Because these hydrocarbon-eating microbes exist there, hydrocarbons must also be present. The scientists assessed a column of water from the surface, from the bottom of the Trench to the surface. "We found that hydrocarbons exist as deep as 6,000 meters below the surface of the ocean and probably even deeper. A significant proportion of them probably derived from ocean surface pollution," revealed Dr. Nikolai Pedentchouk of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences. "To our surprise, we also identified biologically produced hydrocarbons in the ocean sediment at the bottom of the trench. This suggests that a unique microbial population is producing hydrocarbons in this environment," he added. "These hydrocarbons may help microbes survive the crushing pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, which is equal to 1,091 kilograms pressed against a fingernail,” explained Dr. David Lea-Smith of UEA's School of Biological Sciences. "They may also be acting as a food source for other microbes, which may also consume any pollutant hydrocarbons that happen to sink to the ocean floor. But more research is needed to fully understand this unique environment." "Identifying the microbes that produce these hydrocarbons is one of our top priorities, as is understanding the quantity of hydrocarbons released by human activity into this isolated environment," added Professor Xiao-Hua Zhang. Source: AAAS/Eurekalert! via University of East Anglia, Microbiome
With mining spatial bodies, such as asteroids, now deemed legal by congress, and with no restrictions or regulations being put on the earnings (apart from organic matter) that are made with space bounty until at least eight years from now, there is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to mine these valuable space rocks and bring the cash right back home for profit. In terms of how feasible this method is for bringing home resources that our world won’t sustain forever, the answer is that it’s not far off into the future, but it’s definitely not knocking on our doors of today either. With this in mind, it could still be a while before we even tread on these grounds, but nonetheless, that’s not stopping the brave and ambitious from developing technology capable of aiding in the process of finding valuable metals on these spatial bodies so that we know where to go to mine it. A team of researchers from Vanderbilt University, Fisk University, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Planetary Science Institute have created a new type of gamma ray spectroscope that has the ability to locate asteroids that have traces of gold, platinum, rare Earth metals, and other valuable minable materials. The device uses a special transparent crystal made of a material that has been recently discovered, which is capable of detecting gamma rays. “Space missions to the Moon, Mars, Mercury and the asteroid Vesta among others have included low-resolution spectrometers, but it has taken months of observation time and great expense to map their elemental surface compositions from orbit,” said Professor of Astronomy Keivan Stassun, the Vanderbilt co-author. “With our proposed system it should be possible to measure sub-surface elemental abundances accurately, and to do it much more cheaply because our sensors weigh less and require less power to operate. That is good news for commercial ventures where cost, power and launch weight are all at a premium.” This type of device is used to measure the intensity and even the wavelengths of gamma rays that are radiated from a spatial body’s surface. With this information, scientists can determine what kinds of elements make up the spatial body. It can “accurately” detect precious metals, as well as other elements that space miners may be interested in gathering. Best of all, the device uses low power, giving it a lot of versatility and long life in a scenario such as space mining. Conveniently, the development of this device has coincided with the legalities of space mining, and as a result, it’s possible this type of device could be used by an entrepreneur interested in searching space for valuables, snatching them up, and then bringing them back home for use and profit here on Earth. Will it happen before the government starts regulating this sort of stuff? That’s a hard question to answer, as everyone wants to get rich and there are no laws saying what spatial bodies belong to whom, and it could cause conflict. At least, however, we’re working towards a future where space mining could be a reality to end the problem of rare elements being hard to find on Earth. Source: Vanderbilt University
NASA’s upcoming Space Launch System (SLS) rocket received a ton of hype in recent memory, and for a good reason; it’s set to surpass the legendary Saturn V rocket in sheer thrust, making it the most powerful rocket ever built for space travel. Image Credit: NASA The SLS rocket’s powerful engine array will be capable of generating up to 8.4 million pounds of pure thrust, which should help in our quest to send humankind and other life-supporting necessities to other worlds in our solar system, such as Mars and Earth’s very own Moon. As you can probably imagine, a rocket that manufactures this kind of raw horsepower will generate ungodly amounts of heat and noise. To combat these unwanted byproducts, NASA cleverly devised the Ignition Overpressure Protection and Sound Suppression (IOP/SS) deluge system, which spews vast amounts of water into the air in a short period. Image Credit: NASA/YouTube NASA’s IOP/SS system resides at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B, and like all new contraptions, it needed to be tested for validation purposes. Just last week, NASA pressed the big red button, sending more than 450,000 gallons of water into the air. The water plumes then landed on the space agency’s mobile launcher and Flame Deflector. Camera footage depicting the IOP/SS system test has been published on NASA’s official YouTube channel; anyone interested in watching the test can watch the video embedded below: Pretty awesome, eh? According to NASA, all that water was hurled approximately 100 feet in the air before falling back down. So why all the water? Water is well-known for its thermal cooling properties, and this means it can remove excess heat energy from the surrounding air and the surfaces it touches when the SLS rocket officially ignites its engines and lifts off from the ground. Related: Watch SpaceX's powerful new Falcon Heavy rocket lift a Tesla Roadster into space But cooling isn’t the only reason for all the water. As you might recall, the name IOP/SS contains the words “Sound Suppression,” and that’s because the SLS rocket will be one heck of a noisy rocket. Think of all the high-pressure water spewing from those large geysers as a type of noise cancellation system that doubles as a cooling system after the water escapes. But don’t worry, the IOP/SS system won’t cause any flooding to nearby areas. NASA engineers built some of the largest water drains you’ve ever seen into the Flame Deflector, which carries all that water away safely. As it would seem from the tests, the IOP/SS system worked precisely as NASA had intended it. It should be interesting, however, to see how well it performs when NASA officially launches the SLS rocket for the first time within the next couple of years. Source: Popular Science, NASA/YouTube
A lot of excitement has been created by the study of a tiny zircon crystal that measures approximately two times the diameter of a human hair. While it isn't a particularly attractive or visually interesting piece of rock, this crystal that was removed back in 2001 from a rocky outcrop in Western Australia has been verified by two different measurement methods to be 4.4 billion years old, making it the oldest object on Earth. (Insert your own joke here, if you like). These findings were published in the recent edition of Nature Geoscience by a research team led by John Valley, a geoscience professor at the University of Wisconsin.Due to natural erosion and plate tectonics, it's rare to find any rock formations that can date back to anywhere near the formation of the earth's crust. Thus the initial finding of 4.4 billion years was met with some skepticism.The initial method of dating was a well-accepted method using the eventual radioactive decay of uranium into an isotope of lead. The decay proceeds at a predictable rate, so the age can be determined by measuring the amount of lead isotope and comparing it to the remaining amount of uranium. This only works in a closed system-with no uranium or lead isotopes entering or exiting the piece of zircon to be tested. The actual process of uranium decay involves release of a high-speed alpha particle, which could theoretically displace some atoms of the lead isotope.The research team was able to confirm the age using another, more sophisticated method known as atom-probe tomography. In this method, a laser literally evaporated ions from the sample while one set of detectors determined the original position in the beginning sample and another set determined its composition. In essence, this built a 3D atomic-level map of the sample, and allowed the team to count lead atoms and identify their position. They determined that lead was being moved around within the sample, but not enough to distort the age determined by the radioactive decay method.Since the Earth itself was formed as a mass of molten rock 4.5 billion years ago, this finding suggests that the earth's crust formed only about 100 million years after the planet's creation. The cooling required to form the Earth's crust means that it's possible that Earth could have sustained life even earlier than previously thought. The oldest known evidence of life is fossilized stromatolites, produced about 3.4 billion years ago from an ancient form of bacteria.Also, since it's been theorized that our moon was formed by a massive collision between the Earth and a celestial body approximately the size of Mars, this finding implies that the collision had to take place within a relatively narrow window in geological terms. For the moon to form from such a collision, the collision had to take place while the Earth was still in a molten state. So far, this fits in with the previous dating of Moon rocks as being 4.44 billion years old.While there is no evidence yet that life existed on Earth between 3.4 and 4.4 billion years ago, this work suggests that it may have been possible-and fossils that can prove this may exist somewhere, just waiting to be discovered.
For years animal researchers have struggled with the problem of observing species in the wild. The very act of trying to observe animals in their natural habitat can influence behavior and skew research results. Animal cams can only capture so much if they are fixed in one location. If a team of scientists moves into an animal's natural habitat, no matter how careful, there will be external factors that the animals can pick up on such as the smell of humans, the scent of food and the noise from equipment and vehicles. These factors can greatly affect how the animals behave and ruin any chance of getting good data.Penguins have proven especially difficult to study. Their habitat is usually distinctly their own, with no humans for hundreds of miles. While many penguins are tagged with RFID chips to track them, the chips must be read by hand held digital scanners. The range of the scanners is only about two feet. As it turns out, when researchers would get within two feet of a tagged penguin, the stress levels of the birds would go sky high. Penguins don't like to be approached by scary humans with digital equipment and their heart rate and other indicators made this clear. Yvon Le Maho, of the University of Strasbourg, has studied penguins for over 40 years and came up with a solution. A wheeled rover, not unlike the NASA equipment on Mars. It could be remotely controlled from a much further distance away than the RFID scanners. Initially, Le Maho and his team built a large fiberglass penguin and sent it rolling into a colony of King penguins. No dice. The penguins ignored the interloper and would scatter when it came near. Le Maho told NPR, "If you want to confuse the birds with fake penguins, it should be very, very well-designed." Le Maho and his team then got a lucky break. At the same time they were researching the colony, a UK based film crew was shooting a documentary entitled "Penguins: Spy In The Huddle" Philip Dalton, the producer, agreed to work with Le Maho's team and together they built a model that would hopefully be able to infiltrate the group and perhaps even be accepted. "It was like a marriage in heaven." said Dalton of his collaboration with Le Maho's team. Engineers and movie model makers worked together to get the "chick cam" just right. Built to look like a small, fuzzy baby Emperor penguin, the rover was ready to go. The result? Dalton reported, "I think in the year that we were there, with over 1,000 hours of footage that we gathered with our penguin cams, that was an equivalent of about, I believe, five years of research." The cam was accepted almost immediately into the group. Adult penguins even sang to it and tried to take the chick under their collective "wing." Le Maho's research team was able to equip some of the adult penguins with heart monitors and their readings confirmed that when the chick cam approached, the heart rate of the penguins was about the same as when an actual penguin would approach. Le Maho hopes that more penguin cams can be built to track and record the behavior of these adorable birds without causing them too much stress. His team's findings are detailed in a paper published in the December 2014 issue of the journal Nature Methods.Check out the video below for some bloopers from the footage
So, how's it going up there? Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut, identical twin and current International Space Station resident is three months into his year long stay at the ISS and took time to check in with a curious public. In an interview with CBS News, he talked about some of the challenges he's facing and the experiments that are being conducted. The medical research that is being done on board the ISS is significant because of the length of the mission and also because researchers have a rare opportunity to study identical twins. For the first time, the body changes, blood tests and other evaluations have a control factor: Scott Kelly's twin brother Mark, who is on Earth and going through all of the same evaluations. Researchers are looking closely at several kinds of medical factors. Genetics of course, since they have two sets of the same DNA to work with. Specifically, tests are being conducted to measure telomeres, which are found at the end of chromosomes and tend to shrink as we age. Gut bacteria is also a concern. In the normal human digestive tract there are trillions of bacteria, some good, some not so good. NASA will be looking at both brothers to see if the time spent in space changed any of the microscopic make up of the gut. Eyeballs and arteries will be closely studied as well. Zero gravity can affect both of these body systems. Previous ISS astronauts have had had permanent changes in the shape and function of their eyeballs and this could be a major issue for future missions. Kelly, in his interview with CBS News, stated, "You wouldn't want some astronauts to get on Mars after a year and a half, or longer when they're coming home, and not be able to see. It's something we don't understand, but it's something we're working hard at understanding and mitigating the effects. We've done a lot of research up here since I've been here to better understand that."Aside from the science and medical parts of the mission, Kelly was asked about the general day-to-day life on board. What does is sound like? Does it smell bad? He had no complaints about the noise or the smell, telling CBS anchor Scott Pelley, "It doesn't smell too bad." The smell of outer space however, was something else Kelly explained, saying "whenever a vehicle docks or if guys are out doing a spacewalk, the smell of space when you open up the hatch is very distinct. It's kind of like a burning-metal smell, if you can imagine what that would smell like. And as far as the sounds on the space station, it's pumps, fans, motors, certain modules are louder than others, but it's generally a pretty nice working environment. It's not too loud or too smelly."When Kelly was asked if being onboard was similar to being in prison he made some comparisons, but concluded by telling CBS News, "The big difference, though, is we're here by choice. So that makes, I guess, the situation a little bit better." Check out the video below to see the entire interviewSources: Dallas News, CBS, NASA
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Kibble balance. Credit: J.L.Lee/NIST Together with six other units – meter, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela – the kilogram, a unit of mass, is part of the International System of Units (SI) that is used as a basis to express every measurable object or phenomenon in nature in numbers. How did scientists come up with these SI units? What exactly does a single SI unit mean? Well, the kilogram (nicknamed Le Grand K) is the platinum and iridium cylinder in a high-security vault outside Paris. And an imaginary experiment involving the force between two infinite wires defines the ampere, the unit of electrical current. The mole is the amount of substance in a system with as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon-12, the most prevalent isotope of carbon. The kelvin relates to the temperature and pressure at which water, ice, and water vapor coexist in equilibrium, known as the triple point of water. For decades, scientists have strived to retire “Le Grand K”. After all, using the 19th-century artifact-defined concept in the 21st-century is like trying to get to Mars on a rocket powered by a steam engine. It just isn't going to work. On top of that, the current standard kilogram is losing weight. About 50 micrograms, at the latest check. Enough to be different from its once identical copies stored in laboratories around the world. To solve this weight(y) problem, scientists have been looking for a new definition of the kilogram. Scientists have been experimenting and collecting data needed to replace the cylinder with a definition based on mathematical constants. One method, led by an international team known as the Avogadro Project, entails counting the atoms in a silicon-28 sphere that weighs the same as the reference kilogram. The second method involves a sort of scale known as a Kibble balance, named after the renowned physicist and metrologist Bryan Kibble. Instead of balancing the scale with weights, scientists used electromagnetism. An electrical current is sent through a coiled wire, generating a magnetic field that creates the upward force needed to balance the scale. Scientists can figure out the strength of that field by pulling on the coil. If you know the voltage, the current and the velocity at which the coil was pulled, you can calculate the Planck constant with extreme precision. In 2014, at the quadrennial General Conference on Weights and Measures, the scientific community resolved to redefine the kilogram based on Planck's constant, a value from quantum mechanics that describes the packets energy comes in. If physicists could get a good enough measure of Planck's constant, the committee would base a kilogram on that value. On June 30, the day before the deadline to submit a value to the weights and measures committee, the team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was finally ready to release its result. Based on 16 months' worth of measurements, it calculated Planck's constant to be 6.626069934 x 10−34 kg m2/s. Don't be alarmed by this small, strange number. The most important thing about the NIST measurement isn't so much the number (though that's also a big deal) as the uncertainty: just 13 parts per billion. This means that the NIST scientists think their measurement of Planck's constant is within 0.0000013 percent of the correct number. In the end, the scientific community rejoiced, because the quest to redefine the iconic SI unit has reached its goal. How We're Redefining the kg. Credit: Veritasium Source: CERN
Over the last few months, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been beaming information back to Earth from the historic Pluto fly-by on July 14th, where the spacecraft snapped pictures of Pluto and its surrounding bodies while it had every opportunity to get up close. This was the first time that we’ve ever gotten anything this close to Pluto before. As the spacecraft continues outbound, information is slow to get back to Earth. We've already received many of them (1), (2), but there are more to come. Being 3.1 billion miles away from the planet means that it takes a long time for the radio waves to travel back to Earth. Nonetheless, NASA is all ears right now. More stunning photographs have made it back to Earth, this time with Pluto and its largest moon Charon being in the frame. Charon is said to be about half of the size of the diameter of Pluto, and as NASA notes, it is the largest satellite relative to its own planet (or dwarf planet in this case) in our solar system. Charon has some very interesting formations on its surface that look a lot like the Grand Canyon, but are a lot longer and a lot deeper. NASA says that the canyons on Charon are up to twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in some locations, and that it’s 1,000 miles long, which is about four times the length of the Grand Canyon. “It looks like the entire crust of Charon has been split open,” said John Spencer, deputy lead for GGI at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “With respect to its size relative to Charon, this feature is much like the vast Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars.” These formations split the crust of the planet into two main sections – one North and one South. Scientists say that the South side has smaller craters than the North side, which is a result of younger age. There are also smooth locations on Charon that scientists believe may be the result of volcanic activity or underlying frozen oceans. “The team is discussing the possibility that an internal water ocean could have frozen long ago, and the resulting volume change could have led to Charon cracking open, allowing water-based lavas to reach the surface at that time,” said Paul Schenk, a New Horizons team member from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. With New Horizons already having pushed past Pluto, NASA now wants to try and fly past a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69 to learn more about its existence way past the target Pluto. It’s an icy body that floats along asteroids about a billion miles away from Pluto. Just like Pluto, NASA wants to grab pictures and information and then receive it here on Earth for observation. Before then, however, there are still plenty more photographs to get back from the spacecraft after its latest mission. In the mean time, sit back, relax, and watch this awesome video render of the surface of Charon that NASA created with images taken by New Horizons: Source: NASA
NASA acknowledged just under three weeks ago that it was having trouble meeting the stringent development deadlines for its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – the space vehicle that will eventually ferry astronauts to the Moon and beyond – but the American space agency continues to push on with the platform’s development despite these complications. Image Credit: NASA/SSC Citing an official statement from NASA, agency engineers conducted a static test-fire of the SLS rocket’s RS-25 flight engine No. 2062 at the A1 test stand at NASA’s Mississippi-based Stennis Space Center on Thursday. But perhaps more importantly, this particular test-fire realized an essential milestone in the SLS rocket’s development. As it would seem, NASA has now tested every one of its 16 available engines without a hitch. This is terrific news in terms of the SLS rocket’s development because it means NASA won’t need to waste any time improvising in the engine department. “Engines are now a ‘go’ for missions to send astronauts forward to the Moon to learn and prepare for missions to Mars,” exclaimed Johnny Heflin, the deputy manager of NASA’s SLS Liquid Engines Office. “We’re ready to provide the power to explore the Moon and beyond.” Related: The first SLS rocket launch will be uncrewed for safety assessment purposes Notably, these engines aren’t new to NASA – in fact, the space agency has a long history with them. They were formerly built to be the Space Shuttle’s main engines, and now that the Space Shuttle program is retired, NASA is repurposing them because they can generate the immense thrust that NASA’s massive SLS rocket will require. As NASA explains, the engines were designed to sustain an operating threshold of ‘100 percent’ during the Space Shuttle era, and engineers tweaked them to operate at 104.5 percent back in the day. But even that won’t be enough for the SLS rocket; NASA intends to push the tried-and-true engines to an operating threshold of 111 percent with additional power to spare using just engine controller upgrades and other minor modifications. Given the satisfactory results of some of NASA’s most recent static test-fire assessments, it seems that the RS-25 rocket engine is more than capable for the job. That said, NASA is contracting with manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne to build more engines such that the space agency will always have a cache of them on hand when a mission necessitates them. All the delays in recent memory have made it tough to discern when exactly NASA’s SLS rocket will carry astronauts into space, but the most recent approximation on the space agency’s behalf implies that astronauts could fly around the Moon in an Orion spacecraft launched via SLS by 2022. As always, only time will tell if NASA can meet this deadline, but the developments made along the way should be exciting nonetheless. Source: NASA
When it comes to spacesuits, NASA only has so many. In fact, NASA just might be running out of them. The high cost that comes with manufacturing them, as well as the difficulty of repairing them when they break, has backed NASA into a corner of relying on the current inventory. On the other hand, that may have been a mistake. Out of a grand total of 18 spacesuits that were originally made for space exploration in 1981, just 11 of those remain today, despite their supposed 15-year shelf life. The other seven were destroyed or lost in some way; five of them were lost in first stage explosions from rocket and shuttle launches and were never replaced. Image Credit: rahfaldt/Pixabay For the 11 spacesuits that remain, there are problems in a couple pertaining to their internal systems and they still need to be repaired. These problems have caused water to leak into the helmets of various astronauts over the years while performing spacewalks. Unfortunately, the spacesuit’s complexity means repairs are not only costly, but they’re difficult to diagnose and to repair. Additionally, because an astronaut’s life depends on the repair, this isn’t exactly something you want to just slap a ‘bandaid’ on and then hope it works; it needs to be done right. Related: Here's how a spacesuit works Four of the spacesuits are on the International Space Station right now, while the rest are back on Earth either being repaired or preserved. Unfortunately, with at least 17 spacewalk missions planned before 2020, the few remaining spacesuits have quite a few missions to complete, and NASA is worried that they might not last. Developing new spacesuits is very expensive, unfortunately that’s where NASA really needs to invest their time and money. The current spacesuits aren’t optimal for deep space exploration, as their incredible weight and inflexibility makes them ideal for external International Space Station exploration on spacewalks, but not for other planets where there’s going to be gravity. NASA’s International Space Station program is expected to last through to 2024, but if that’s going to be the case, then the existing spacesuits really have to last the extent of the mission. If they don’t, then NASA may have to retire the International Space Station sooner than expected due to budget and time restraints that are keeping them from producing new spacesuits. Another problem is that NASA has at least three different designs for spacesuits: one for lunar travel, one for extravehicular travel, and one for Martian travel. Splitting their funding into three separate departments certainly isn’t helping the situation any, and as Mars becomes the main focus for future missions, NASA might have to nix lunar suit development going forward. More than $200 million has been invested in the development of new spacesuits over the last decade thus far, but there’s still far more work to be done to make it possible. Until then, NASA will have to ‘limp’ forward on the remaining spacesuits. Source: OIG, NASA via Science Alert
For almost a decade, thanks to an increased effort in exoplanet hunting such as NASA's Kepler mission, astronomers have identified a lot of Earth-like planets outside our solar system. However, they had a problem explaining why a significant number of these exoplanets, usually in pairs, have unstable orbits. There seemed to be an invisible force pushing them apart from each other. A team of Yale researchers thinks they might have found an answer to that mystery: according to their calculation, the pole of these planets could be over-tilted. In astronomy obliquity, also known as axial tilt, describes the angle between a body's rotational axis and its orbital axis. All planets exhibit axial tilt to a certain degree. Currently, Earth has an axial tilt about 23°, while the one of Mars is 25°. An oddball in the solar system, Uranus has an axis tilts of 82°, making it look like a tipped-over barrel that rotates on its side. Related reading: Why Uranus is so tilted? Scientists had previously suspected that the tides on these planets, caused by their host star, could nudging them out of the regular orbits by draining their orbital energy. But the problem is that later calculation revealed the tides aren't strong enough to pull off such a feat. Sarah Millholland and professor Gregory Laughlin, the Yale astronomers behind the latest study, added their ingenious tweak to the original theory: they proposed that if these exoplanets have a substantial obliquity, similar to the case of Uranus, then the tides would have sufficient kinetic energy to affect their orbit. In a press release, Millholland explained their idea: "When planets such as these have large axial tilts, as opposed to little or no tilt, their tides are exceedingly more efficient at draining orbital energy into heat in the planets. This vigorous tidal dissipation pries the orbits apart." The probable over-tilting feature of these exoplanets will have board implications in the planet's physical characters, such as their climate and atmosphere. Earth's current obliquity allows our planet to have a gradual switch between distinct seasons. Hypothetically, if a planet has a perfect 90° tilt angle, it would always be summer and day time at one pole, and winter and night time at the other. And also thanks to the Moon, which has a stabilizing effect on Earth's obliquity, our poles only oscillate in a small range (22°-24°) in the past 5 million years. Otherwise, scientists suspect that Earth's obliquity might reach near 90° over several billion years. For their next step, the astronomy duo will be looking into the effect of substantial obliquity on planets' structures over time. Their study was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy. What Knocked Over Uranus? And Two Other Mysteries (SciShow Space) Source: Science Daily
Here on Earth, we have something called volcanoes. We think we understand them very well; they’re essentially vents for Earth’s underground networks of molten rock, and when the pressure down there builds up to be too high, it will all eventually start spewing out of a volcano. On the other hand, there are several volcanoes on Earth; some exist on the rocky surface, and others are under the surface of our oceans. Whatever the case, there are certainly more than one. It’s this exact logic that is causing confusion about a lone ice volcano on Ceres, a dwarf planet that resides in between Mars and Jupiter. Apparently, this lone ice volcano, which goes by the name of Ahuna Mons, is the only one to be found on the entire dwarf planet today, and it’s simply baffling the minds of scientists. It makes no sense for Ceres to have just one ice volcano, and some experts think that it wasn’t always alone. Image Credit: NASA Reporting in the Geophysical Research Letters, a group of researchers led by Michael M. Sori from the University of Arizona in Tucson explain that Ceres might have once had many ice volcanos, but they vanish from time to time. “Imagine if there was just one volcano on all of Earth,” Sori said. “That would be puzzling. We think we have a very good case that there have been lots of cryovolcanoes on Ceres but they have deformed.” The researchers point directly at the steep sides of Ahuna Mons as evidence for two likely scenarios that would explain why it exists in solitude: 1) the ice volcano exists alone because it was only just recently formed, or 2) it’s alone because a process on Ceres repeatedly wears down ice volcanoes and just happens to have left this one behind. Whenever we see smooth or steep structures on Earth, such as canyons, we understand that weathering can have an impact on how they turn out, on the other hand, Ceres doesn’t have an atmosphere, so weathering isn’t possible. Another way for similar structures to form on Earth is from flowing water, in which the water will carve its own crevices into structures over time. But is there any flowing water on Ceres like here on Earth? I would certainly not seem that way. On the other hand, Ceres may exhibit viscous relaxation, which is a process where even some solids can flow. The property of viscous relaxation can be observed in frozen ice (glaciers) and many other examples on Earth, and as the statement from the researchers points out, if you were to take a frozen block of honey and let it sit, it would eventually flatten out over time due to this process. Since Ceres’ ice volcanoes are, well… ice, this would explain why Ahuna Mons appears to be the last remaining ice volcano; perhaps the rest of them have already flattened out and become harder to find. This process wouldn’t be too difficult considering that Ceres isn’t too far away from the Sun, a source of heat that can melt ice. To be affected by viscous relaxation, Ahuna Mons would need to be composed of around 40% water ice. Even at these rates, the researchers were able to use computer models, to find that viscous relaxation would cause Ceres’ ice volcanoes to shrink by 30-160 feet every million years or so. At this rate, ice volcanoes can literally disappear from the face of Ceres in a scale of hundreds of millions of years or billions of years. Since Ahuna Mons is 200 million years old, viscous relaxation could explain the super-smooth sides of the ice volcano, but since it’s relatively young, much more time would have to pass for the ice volcano to vanish completely. On the other hand, in order for the team to really prove that their theory holds any water, they will have to try and find the remains of older ice volcanoes that no longer exist on Ceres to compare to the last man standing. It should be interesting to see what future studies will bring in terms of why this appears to be the only remaining ice volcano on Ceres. Even if Ahuna Mons really is the only ice volcano that ever existed on Ceres, this research will take us one step closer to unraveling the mystery. Source: AGU via Engadet
The seemingly-endless search for extraterrestrial life in our universe continues on, and while we haven’t found any leads just yet, we do continue to search for terrestrial exoplanets that might have the same or similar conditions to those we have here on Earth. One of our closest stellar neighbors is Proxima b, which has a lot of potential to support life. On the other hand, as discussed in a study that appears in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, Proxima b might only be capable of supporting life if it has an atmosphere similar to our own. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser The findings were made possible by University of Exeter researchers who took the information we currently know about Proxima b and used it with the Met Office Unified Model (UM), which is usually used for predicting climate change on Earth. Related: Exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs are unlikely to support life By playing around with the figures, they were able to mess around with different scenarios in which the exoplanet might have slightly variant atmospheric conditions or near mirror image atmospheric conditions. “We present results of … the responses of both an ‘Earth-like’ atmosphere and simplified nitrogen and trace carbon dioxide atmosphere to the radiation likely received by Proxima Centauri B,” the researchers write in the paper. “Overall, our results are in agreement with previous studies in suggesting Proxima Centauri B may well have surface temperatures conducive to the presence of liquid water.” Related: Does Proxima b have a global ocean? What they found during their simulations was that Proxima b might have a chance of supporting liquid water on its surface as long as it has either an Earth-like atmosphere, or at the very least, a simple atmosphere composed of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Where there is water, there is a very real possibility for the existence of life. But hang on; we’re not out of the woods just yet… Existing in the habitable zone of its host star, Proxima b should already have the right temperature conditions to support life, but more factors contribute to temperature than just where the exoplanet resides around its host star. For example, the exoplanet also needs a protective magnetic field, which works in tandem with an atmosphere to protect the surface from stellar radiation, and the right chemical composition in addition to an atmosphere and surface water to support life forms. All of these factors help regulate the temperature of the planet to sustain life, and without each of them, the planet could look just like Mars – dry and barren. While having an atmosphere is a pretty big “if” as to whether or not Proxima b supports life, it’s pretty reassuring to know that models right here on Earth can be used to help predict its habitability. Even if Proxima b has liquid water, it’s still possible that there isn’t any life, so there’s a lot to potentially consider. Unfortunately, because Proxima b is so far away (4.2 light years to be exact), we don’t have the means to observe the exoplanet up close or to put a lander on its surface to check for life and answer our ongoing questions. We’re stuck relying on space telescopes and computer models for the time being. Making things even more complicated, other exoplanets besides Proxima b are even more distant from us, so it’s a difficult task to find life outside of our Solar System. Related: The upcoming James Webb Space Telescope may help us study Proxima b Fortunately, space observation and exploration equipment is getting more powerful and versatile with each passing day, so perhaps we’ll come across something at some point. Source: Gizmodo
This series will explore historic space missions from the start of the Space Age to the present day, including both crewed and robotic missions. Here we will investigate the scientific rationale behind each mission and, most importantly, what we learned from these early missions and how they helped shape future missions that will launch to the Moon and Mars within the coming years. SpaceX is launching and landing rockets with ease, and NASA’s Space Launch System is about to have its maiden flight before it takes astronauts back the Moon in the next few years. But the Space Age didn’t start off running at full speed, as there was a slow crawl followed by a few stumbles on our way to beating the Soviet Union to the Moon. Here, we will discuss NASA’s Pioneer Program. The experimental Pioneer Program was the first conducted by NASA and was operated from 1958 to 1978, with the first launch of the program occurring less than a month after the space agency was officially founded in July 1958. While the first few missions of Pioneer (0-4) had the goal of exploring the region around the Moon, later Pioneer spacecraft were launched to investigate specific planetary bodies or other space phenomena, such as interplanetary-particle and magnetic-field effects. Unfortunately, much like SpaceX had trouble initially landing their rockets on ocean barges, NASA also had their own hiccups during their first missions. Pioneer 0’s booster exploded shortly after liftoff and Pioneer 1 experienced a booster malfunction and failed to reach Lunar orbit. While the latter mission sent back data on radiation and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, it unfortunately re-entered Earth’s atmosphere 43 hours after it launched. But with every new mission, NASA learned from its mistakes. After Pioneer 3 experienced a booster failure that prevented it from achieving escape velocity, Pioneer 4 then became the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull only a few short months later, ultimately flying within 60,000 km (37,282 miles) of the Moon. The proceeding Pioneer missions achieved enormous success, with each mission traveling father out and allowing us to gain even more knowledge about the solar system. Pioneer 5 launched in March 1960 and successfully examined the interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth and Venus. Pioneers 6 through 9 were launched in the mid- to late-1960s and were designed to examine space phenomena such as solar wind and the interplanetary environment from several widely separated points in space. All four spacecraft lasted well into the 1980s and 90s, with Pioneer 6 operating for over 30 years since launch. Pioneers 10 and 11 took leaps and bounds beyond their predecessors, becoming the first spacecrafts to study beyond Mars, with both spacecraft flying through the asteroid belt and conducting flybys of Jupiter, with Pioneer 11 also conducting a flyby of Saturn. Much like the later Voyager spacecrafts, Pioneer 10 and 11 are now traveling toward interstellar space since their missions have concluded. After the success of Pioneer 10 and 11, NASA turned its gaze back to the inner solar system, launching the Pioneer Venus Orbiter to Venus in May 1978 and arriving in December 1978 to investigate Venus’ upper atmosphere and ionosphere, as well as conducting radar mapping of the surface and investigating the solar wind in the Venusian environment. The probe was equipped with countless instruments initially designed to last only one year, but most of which were operational even as the spacecraft burned up in Venus’ atmosphere in October 1992 due to the spacecraft being low on fuel. The final mission in the Pioneer program was the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, which was launched in August 1978 arriving at Venus in November of that same year. The mission was designed to study the Venusian atmosphere in detail and consisted of one large and three small atmospheric probes, all of which entered the atmosphere in December, all of which sent back data about the environmental conditions and composition of Venus’ atmosphere. While initially getting off to a shaky start, NASA’s Pioneer Program ultimately displayed what humanity can achieve by learning from their mistakes and taking greater risks to study the unknown. This program is a testament to the tireless dedication to science and the study of the cosmos. The lessons learned from Pioneer ultimately paved the way for both robotic and human space missions in the coming years and decades, and should be given credit as laying the groundwork for the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon. Sources: Universe Today, Britannica, Historic Spacecraft, NASA, NASA (2) As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Daliah Raquel Bibas is a second-year Geology & Planetary Sciences Master’s Degree Candidate at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. This comes after earning a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Biology & Medical Sciences in April 2021, also at Western. “I always knew I loved sciences – I have been asking questions about life since I was a child,” said Bibas. “Questions like ‘How did life start?’ and ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ were regularly in my mind. I have always felt a strong urge to seek answers to these questions.” Initially, Bibas pursued an undergraduate degree in Medical Sciences because she aspired to attend medical school. However, this all changed in her third year when she took Astrobiology as an elective saying she fell in love with it, later adding Biology to her major while looking for graduate programs in Astrobiology. “I have always been intrigued by the concept of life and the existence of life beyond planet Earth, but I never considered it as a potential career path before taking this course,” said Bibas. “The course material really opened my eyes to the amount of knowledge that is still unknown and awaiting to be discovered. Since then, my focus has shifted to Earth and Space Sciences, and I have been reading and learning about these topics as much as I can, both in school and in my free time.” Bibas credits Carl Sagan as being her inspiration, saying both his writings and research gives her so much fulfillment. Like her hero, Bibas also believes there is life beyond the Earth and her goal is to dedicate her life to finding it. “By pursuing a master’s degree, I am provided with the knowledge, experience, and network required to achieve my career objectives,” said Bibas. “I hope to make contributions to the emerging field of Astrobiology and believe that a master’s of science degree in this field will ultimately lead me to the next step in my academic and professional career.” Bibas gives enormous praise to both Western University’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration and her advisor, Dr. Gordon Osinski, saying his research is what drew her to the program. She adds his enthusiasm and passion for his work is “truly contagious”, and she feels fortunate to have the opportunity to work with him. Even with this, Bibas says that time management, work-life balance, and other associated stresses from academia are possibly the hardest challenges for graduate students in science. “I personally struggle with feeling like I need to be constantly studying while also maintaining a social life, said Bibas. “Keeping motivation and avoiding burnouts can also be difficult. Furthermore, finding a job that doesn’t require years of work experience is a very common challenge for students in my field today.” Bibas says she aspires to earn a PhD with the goal of being involved in both industry and academia, as she sees herself possibly teaching at the university level while conducting industry research. “In 5-10 years from now, I would like to be an entrepreneur focusing on several projects,” said Bibas. “I am passionate about educating; hence, I would love to teach at a university level and share my knowledge via my own books or podcast. I hope to contribute to the space exploration industry, whether that’s helping plan a NASA sample-return mission or design a future Mars base. In addition, I also want to be a consultant for space-related ventures, such as terraforming Mars or attempting to contact potential intelligent life beyond Earth, and for accurate science in media, such as science fiction movies or documentaries about life on Earth and in the cosmos.” As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Going to space is a dream for many. Astronauts are viewed almost as superheroes, but the dangers of space travel cannot be underestimated. On long trips, similar to what would be needed to send a crewed mission to Mars, there is the danger of stress and mental breakdowns during the long voyage into the vastness of space. With any mission that goes beyond a low Earth orbit, there is an enormous amount of galactic cosmic radiation, which can be toxic to the brain. High energy protons and other charged particles collide and produce unprecedented levels of radiation. These rays mess with the cells and molecules in the body and can do some real damage to cognition and memory. For those who spend time on the International Space Station, there are radiation shields in place, and the ISS is only exposed to a few minutes of radiation each day. It's difficult to study because ethically, you cannot expose astronauts to radiation just to see what happens. Recent research into a simulation of space-like radiation in mice has revealed an unexpected result. The study showed that not everyone's brain is impacted in the same way by cosmic radiation. Research funded by NASA and carried out at UC San Francisco shows that in female mice, there were no signs of cognitive decline or structural changes in the brain. Male mice showed significant damage to the brain in the same environment. Dr. Karen Krukowski, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher and the first author of the research paper which was published online this month in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. She explained, "We can see stark differences in the female responses, from behavioral read-outs down to the cellular and molecular level, when compared to the male counterparts. We did not expect to see a difference – it was a bit surprising." UCSF neuroscientist Dr. Susanna Rosi, Ph.D., oversees the lab that conducted the research. She is also a professor of physical therapy, rehabilitation and neurological surgery and a member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. In a press release she stated, "Thanks to NASA, we are planning on doing further research to understand the specific mechanisms behind these profound differences. Based on recent evidence, we believe that cells known as microglia protect the female brain against insults such as deep space radiation. Understanding what makes these cells more resistant could be key to pinpointing specific treatments." Limiting exposure to radiation is crucial if NASA is to launch a spacecraft to Mars by the year 2030. Understanding that radiation exposure to the brain differs in men and women is a significant piece of the puzzle of getting astronauts into deep space. The most recent class of astronauts at NASA is 40% female, so it's important to realize the differences between men and women when it comes to brain health in space. So how did they do it? A specific mixture of protons, helium, and oxygen dubbed the "GCR cocktail" was developed for the work. Previous research used just single elements of radiation found in space and used only male rodents. A mixture is closer to what would be found out past the Earth's magnetic field and sex differences matter. The male mice in the study had significant behavioral changes, difficulty recognizing familiar objects and their interaction with other mice dropped. Increased activity of immune cells in the brain also occurred, in the hippocampus which is where memory and cognition are processed. Synaptic connections fell in this area, and AMPA receptors needed for neurotransmitters also decreased. In the female mice? None of this happened. They had no reduced cognition, no behavior changes and no loss of any receptors. The differences could be related to the fact that female mice have more resting microglia cells. These prevent the inflammatory response that was seen in the male mice. Without the excitability of the cells, the brains of female mice were protected. The work will continue, with different kinds of radiation as well as efforts to "reset" the immune response to see if that will help protect male brains. To learn more about this study, check out the video below. Sources: UCSF Digital Trends Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are undertaking a collaborative project called the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night), a proposed radio telescope that will be based on the far side of the Moon. The primary goal of the project will be to detect radio waves emanating from what’s known as the Dark Ages of the Universe, what scientists refer to as the “Dark Age Signal”, which is a period beginning approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang when no stars or planets were formed, and a period that’s been unable to be observed by scientists. “Modeling the universe is easier before stars have formed. We can calculate almost everything exactly,” said Dr. Anze Slosar, who is a physicist and Distinguished Scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. “So far, we can only make predictions about earlier stages of the universe using a benchmark called the cosmic microwave background. The Dark Ages Signal would provide a new benchmark. And if predictions based on each benchmark don’t match, that means we’ve discovered new physics.” Having LuSEE-Night on the far side of the Moon will provide an ample opportunity to scan the universe for radio signals given the complete radio silence it has from Earth due to both celestial bodies being tidally locked to each other. This is why the same side of the Moon always faces Earth with the lunar phase cycle (from Full Moon to Full Moon) lasting 29.5 days. However, this also presents new challenges as while the lunar far side is immersed in total darkness for 14 Earth days, it’s then immersed in complete sunlight for another 14 Earth days. This means the surface experience temperature fluctuations between 250°F (120°C) and -280°F (-173°C), which could prove challenging for a robotic explorer to survive. “The moon is easier to reach than Mars, but everything else is more challenging,” said Paul O’Connor, who is a senior scientist in Brookhaven’s Instrumentation Division and the Project Instrument Scientist on LuSEE-Night. “There's a reason only one robotic rover has landed on the Moon in the last 50 years, while six went to Mars, which is 100 times farther away. It’s a vacuum environment, which makes removing heat difficult, and there’s a bunch of radiation.” Paul O'Connor (left), Anze Slosar (center), and Sven Herrmann(right) in the Brookhaven instrumentation lab where the researchers are developing the spectrometer for LuSEE-Night, the heart of the instrument. (Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory) The proposed landing site for LuSee-Night on the far side of the Moon. (Credit: NASA/USGS/JAXA/SELENE) Such a drastic temperature range could not only interfere with LuSEE-Night receiving and transmitting data back to Earth, but could also cause instruments to freeze, thus ending the mission earlier than expected. “LuSEE-Night will operate during the cold temperatures of the 14-day lunar night, when no sunlight is available to generate power or heat,” said Dr. Joel Kearns, who is the Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “In addition to the significant potential science return, demonstration of the LuSEE-Night lunar night survival technology is critical to performing long-term, high-priority science investigations from the lunar surface.” Upon landing on the lunar far side, LuSEE-Night’s lander will permanently turn off to prevent it from producing radio interference on the surface. Next, LuSEE-Night’s telescope will deploy a turntable containing four three-meter-long antennas that will be used to collect and transmit the data. Once this is complete, LuSEE-Night will have to endure its first major hurdle, which is to survive its first night on the Moon’s far side, which as stated, lasts 14 Earth days. The first set of data will be collected and transmitted after the first 40 days of the mission, but until then, scientists much patiently wait to see if the spacecraft survived. If survival is achieved, LuSEE-Night will prove that accomplishing radio cosmology experiments on the far side of the Moon is attainable. LuSee-Night is scheduled to be delivered to the far side of the Moon on NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) in 2025. Sources: Brookhaven National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, LuSEE-Night, NASA As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
For nearly twenty years, people have been living on the International Space Station for various periods of time; some have lived onboard for hundreds of days. With these lengthy trips and the potential of future missions to Mars, there are good reasons to assess the impact of space travel on human health. Recent work has found that space can affect gene expression in humans and bacterial behaviors. Scientists at NASA have now determined that herpes viruses can reactivate in space; they did so in over half the crew members onboard International Space Station and space shuttle missions. Only some of those crew members actually had symptoms, but the rate of viral reactivation went up as the length of spaceflight increased. The work has been reported in Frontiers in Microbiology. "NASA astronauts endure weeks or even months exposed to microgravity and cosmic radiation - not to mention the extreme G forces of take-off and re-entry," said the senior author of the work Dr. Satish K. Mehta of KBR Wyle at the Johnson Space Center. "This physical challenge is compounded by more familiar stressors like social separation, confinement, and an altered sleep-wake cycle." Because it’s possible for the herpes virus to become active again in immunocompromised astronauts, they may present a serious risk to lengthy missions, such as to Mars. NASA is creating tools to detect viruses rapidly, and therapeutics to treat them. That could benefit not only astronauts, but also people on Earth with weakened immune systems. In this study, the researchers assessed biological samples collected from astronauts before, during and after a trip to space. They found that biological markers of stress went up, which gives dormant viruses a chance to come alive. “During spaceflight, there is a rise in secretion of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are known to suppress the immune system. In keeping with this, we find that astronaut's immune cells - particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses - become less effective during spaceflight and sometimes for up to 60 days after,” said Mehta. “To date, 47 out of 89 (53%) astronauts on short space shuttle flights, and 14 out of 23 (61%) on longer ISS missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples. These frequencies, as well as the quantity of viral shedding, are markedly higher than in samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls." Half the known human herpes viruses could be detected in the samples, including chickenpox and shingles (VZV) and oral and genital herpes (HSV). Few symptoms were exhibited. “Only six astronauts developed any symptoms due to viral reactivation,” said Mehta. “All were minor.” Learn more about the various types of herpes viruses from the video above by Albert Einstein College of Medicine. It does present a danger, however, to uninfected contacts back on Earth, especially immunocompromised infants. “Infectious VZV and CMV were shed in body fluids up to 30 days following return from the International Space Station,” Mehta explained. It could also be an issue for longer space missions. Viral reactivation could become a health issue for astronauts and whoever they come into contact with. “The magnitude, frequency, and duration of viral shedding all increase with length of spaceflight.” It’s essential to find a way to counteract this viral reactivation if deep-space missions are to be successful, suggested Mehta. "The ideal countermeasure is vaccination for astronauts - but this is so far available only against VZV." "Trials of other herpes virus vaccines show little promise, so our present focus is on developing targeted treatment regimens for individuals suffering the consequences of viral reactivation. This research has tremendous clinical relevance for patients on Earth too. Already, our spaceflight-developed technologies for rapid viral detection in saliva have been employed in clinics and hospitals around the world." The video above discusses the special challenges that arise when someone gets sick in space. Sources: AAAS/Eurekalert! Via Frontiers, Frontiers in Microbiology
The seventh SpaceX commercial crew mission, Crew-7, to the International Space Station (ISS) blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on August 26th at 3:27 am EDT (12:27 am PDT) carrying a four-person crew with each astronaut representing a different organization and country. These include Commander Jasmin Moghbeli (NASA, United States), Pilot Andreas Mogensen (European Space Agency, Denmark), Mission Specialist Satoshi Furukawa (JAXA, Japan), and Mission Specialist Konstantin Borisov (Roscosmos, Russia). This nighttime launch was followed by a successful docking to the ISS the following day, and Crew-7 is scheduled to remain on the ISS for a six-month duration with a scheduled splashdown occurring sometime in the first quarter of 2024. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on August 26, 2023 carrying NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov for a six-month stay on the ISS. (Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky) “Crew-7 is a shining example of the power of both American ingenuity and what we can accomplish when we work together,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an official NASA statement. “Aboard station, the crew will conduct more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations to prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, all while benefiting humanity on Earth. By partnering with countries around the world, NASA is engaging the best scientific minds to enable our bold missions, and it’s clear that we can do more – and we can learn more – when we work together.” During their mission, Crew-7 will perform a myriad of scientific experiments, including investigating the psychological characteristics for astronauts throughout their sleep on long-term spaceflights, conducting the first study regarding how the human body responds to various periods of time during spaceflight, and gathering microbial samples from the external surfaces of the ISS. These studies continue the longstanding goal of gaining better insight into long-term human spaceflight in microgravity, which will be pertinent for the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon, and possibly sending humans to Mars, someday. “The International Space Station is an incredible science and technology platform that requires people from all around the world to maintain and maximize its benefits to people on Earth,” said Ken Bowersox, who is the associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. “It’s great seeing Crew-7 launch with four crew members representing four countries who will live and work on humanity’s home in space as we continue the nearly 23 years of a continuous human presence aboard the microgravity laboratory.” Crew-7 is the latest edition to the long and rich history of the ISS hosting close to 300 astronauts from countries all over the world and conducting scientific experiments to improve humankind for the future, both in space and on Earth. These countries include the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Great Britain, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, and Sweden. As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA, NASA (1), European Space Agency, JAXA, Wikipedia, SpaceNews, NASA (2), NASA (3), NASA (4), NASA (5), NASA (6)
The role of telomeres in the aging process has become a hot topic in biology, and recent study have linked telomeres - the protective caps at the end of DNA strands - with a variety of diseases, including many forms of cancer.According to a review published by Paula Martinez and Maria Blasco from the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO) in Trends in Biochemical Sciences and described in Science Daily, it is important to study the role of telomeres to improve the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. These complex structures prevent the merger of chromosomes and prevent the loss of genetic information each time a cell divides (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150715130828.htm). In cell replication, the molecular mechanism that duplicates the chromosomes cannot reach the tip. Telomeres consist of a DNA sequence that does not contain genes and that is repeated many times. The shortening of the DNA with every division is not significant until a certain limit is reached. When telomeres become too short, there are problems associated with aging: cells interpret short telomeres as being damaged and stop dividing, which prevents tissue from regenerating.While this process happens in healthy cells, it does not happen in cancer cells. An enzyme, telomerase, can lengthen the telomeres. As the article explains, "This enzyme is not present in most cells of an adult organism, but it is active in tumor cells. By repairing the telomeres, the telomerase enables cancer cells to proliferate and become virtually immortal. It is possible to make cancer cells mortal by acting on the telomeres."Various researchers have discovered telomere syndromes, or telomeropathies, in people with mutations of the telomerase enzyme. Some examples of this syndrome are pulmonary fibrosis and bone marrow malfunction. There appears to be a direct relationship between telomere dysfunctions and many types of cancer. Mutations of the proteins that protect telomeric DNA (the shelterins) and proteins that interact with the telomeres, seem to be involved in various diseases, such as dyskeratosis congenita, Hoyeraal-Hreidarsson syndrome and Revesz syndrome.According to an article by Masood A. Shammas, "Telomeres, Lifestyle, Cancer and Again," found on the National Center for biotechnology Information website, telomere length shortens with age. Progressive shortening of telomeres affects the health and lifespan of an individual. Shorter telomeres indicate increased incidence of diseases and poor survival. Specific lifestyle factors affect the rate of telomere shortening. By choosing a better diet and better activities, people can reduce the rate of telomere shortening or prevent excessive telomere attrition, delaying the onset of age-associated diseases and increasing lifespan (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/).
An example of solar electric propulsion. (Credit: NASA) In a recent study presented at the AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) examined how a widely used electronic propulsion system in Earth orbit known as Hall thrusters can be designed to generate larger amounts of thrust, but with smaller thrusters. This study challenges a long-standing belief that Hall thrusters needed to be large to produce the necessary amount of thrust, but this could help open the doors for better thrusters to be used for interplanetary missions throughout the solar system. "People had previously thought that you could only push a certain amount of current through a thruster area, which in turn translates directly into how much force or thrust you can generate per unit area," Dr. Benjamin Jorns, who is a U-M associate professor of aerospace engineering, and a co-author on the study, said in a statement. For the study, the researchers successfully ran a 9-kilowatt Hall thruster up to 45 kilowatts while preserving approximately 80 percent of the thruster’s efficiency, which resulted in an increase of almost 10 times the amount of force generated per unit area. "We named our thruster the H9 MUSCLE because essentially, we took the H9 thruster and made a muscle car out of it by turning it up to 11 -- really up to a hundred, if we're going by accurate scaling," Leanne Su, a PhD student in aerospace engineering at U-M, and lead author of the study, said in a statement. The researchers were able to use this thruster to match the thrust of a much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster, and believe their thrusters could allow future crewed Mars missions to reach the Red Planet, even from the far side of the Sun. Sources: AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum, University of Michigan News As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
The Odysseus moon lander, which first launched for the moon on February 15, appears to have broken a leg upon landing and then fell over on the moon’s surface, with some of the first images received on Earth showing the broken leg. The craft landed close to the moon’s south pole. Though Odysseus is still generating power through solar energy at this time, it was only meant to survive about a week. After that, the lander was expected to go quiet once it entered into “lunar night” (ie, the dark side of the moon), which could spell the end for the lander. Reaching temperatures of nearly -130º Celsius, that kind of cold could destroy the batteries and other hardware on the lander, leaving it unable to communicate back to Earth. Odysseus, which was created by the private company Intuitive Machines, is the first private vessel to attempt a landing on the moon, and the first time the U.S. has attempted a landing in over 50 years. It’s also the second time a private enterprise has attempted a moon landing in collaboration with NASA; the first one had a fuel leakage issue the prevented the craft from leaving the atmosphere. Part of the reason for the incorrect landing was likely driven bya change in the lander’s navigation system. Late in the game, the lander switched away from its own navigation system (which had become inactive) to an experimental system provided by NASA. This laser system emerged as a novel, highly-precise method of navigation that could provide more clear guidance to landers in the lunar environment. Early technology for landing on planets and moons, such as Mars, leveraged radar technology. However, these tools were very imprecise because radar waves can cover a wide distance, nor could the differentiate between velocity and range. The laser system designed by NASA was designed to give more precise information for landing. However, Odysseus landed nearly a mile from its intended target and at a higher elevation than the flat terrain of the target landing zone. It also came in too fast, breaking a leg before sliding back on a nearby slope. Sources: Phys.org; BBC; CNN; NASA
Credit: forplayday/thinkstock From the discoveries of Earth-like exoplanets to finding water in every corner of our solar system, from the ubiquitous presence of life in extreme environments to the reception of bizarre radio signals from space, it is harder and harder not to speculate that life could pop up somewhere other than just Earth. But where are they? The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi once asked this question during a lunch with his colleagues. Besides the most well-known zoo hypothesis, which hypothesizes that we are placed inside some cosmic zoo, observed but left alone to develop without external interference, many other theories have been proposed, with some sounding more probable than others. Life, after all, could be rare in the universe. One might think the evolution of life on Earth should be quite typical, but many believe the opposite is true: the conditions needed for the evolution of life (biologically complex life forms) are rare or even unique to Earth. Under this assumption, life requires a series of serendipities such as a galactic habitable zone, a central star and planetary system having the requisite character, a right-sized terrestrial planet that is located in the Goldilocks Zone, and many other prerequisites that favor the emergence of carbon-based life. Even if complex life forms are common, say one day we find bacteria on Mars, intelligence may not be. Under the assumption that intelligent life forms exist, there are still many factors that limit the chances for us to find them. One of the popular hypotheses out there is that life has a tendency to self-destroy or destroy others. We do not need to look deep into the history of humankind to find the examples of both scenarios. On the self-destruction front, the famed sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that it has yet to be determined whether intelligence has any survival value. Despite the apparent advantages humans have through their high intelligence in comparison to other species on Earth, we also have the unfortunate combination of two qualities: we are very good at constructing tools and systems, but terrible at long-term planning and forecasting. The duality of civilizations like ours can lead to self-destruction before or shortly after developing radio or spaceflight technology, through nuclear war, resource depletion, climate change, or rogue artificial intelligence. According to a recent paper that attempted to unravel the secret behind the cosmic silence, human society could be at the brink of extinction. It is believed that the Earth should be habitable for animals at least a billion years into the future. Based on how long it took proto-primates to evolve into a technological species like us, it should leave enough time for the process to happen up to 23 more times. On that time scale, there could also have been others before us, but there's nothing in the geologic record to indicate that we are not the first. Regarding aggression against others, intelligent beings have the tendency (and the means) to destroy other species, intelligent or not. As feared by the renowned astrophysicist Steven Hawking, alien civilizations could be rapacious marauders, “roaming the cosmos in search of resources to plunder and planets to conquer and colonize.” Human beings are just like ants from their perspective, easily crushable if standing between them and their desired resource. Because of such potential risk, he advocated for the maximum caution in human kind’s search for extraterrestrial life forms. Some would argue that intelligent life forms are perhaps too far away from each other to communicate. Space is vast and communication (assuming the transmission is traveling at the speed of light) takes a lot of time and requires resources. With an incredibly sensitive radio telescope, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detected up to 0.3 lightyears away (that is less than 1/10 the distance to our nearest neighbor star Alpha Centauri A). And the signal would take up to 4 months to be received. If two civilizations are separated by several thousand of lightyears, it is possible that one or both cultures may become extinct before meaningful dialogue could be established. According to a newly emerging theory, as unorthodox as it might sound, scientists believe that the aliens have deactivated themselves, which makes them impossible to detect. These extraterrestrial intelligent beings in question, who have taken a post-biological form of existence, could have been sleeping all along while they wait for the universe to cool down. The assumption is that the consciousness of the entire civilization has been uploaded to a digitalized mechanism, which resembles a computer. To maximize its computational capacity, this artificial life would have chosen to be in sleep mode and would not be waking up again until the universe gets colder. Many alien hunters have also questioned if we have been listening properly. The SETI (acronym for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programs operate with limitations regarding the type of transmission and the origin of the signals. A message from aliens is much easier to detect if the signal energy is limited to either a narrow range of frequencies or directed at a specific part of the sky. That is why telescopes could have missed signals of unconventional frequencies or signals resembling background noise. If the radio transmissions come from the star systems that are in a lower priority on the list, we could have easily missed them. The Arecibo Message in graphic format. Credit: Wikipedia The Arecibo message is a prime example from the alien’s perspective. In 1974 an interstellar radio message carrying essential information about humanity and Earth was sent to globular star cluster M13 from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, in the hope that extraterrestrial intelligence might receive and decipher it. But aliens in cluster M13 would have to aim their telescopes toward the region of space to which our message was sent, and set them to an appropriate range of frequencies. Some have long suspected fast radio burst (FRB), a high-energy astrophysical phenomenon of unknown origin, to be the aliens’ preferred method of communication to reach other sentient beings in the universe. It is so transient that it lasts as short as a few milliseconds. This September, Breakthrough Listen – a global astronomical initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, has detected 15 more brief but powerful radio pulses from FRB 121102, a mysterious source from a distant galaxy. Since the discovery of the first FRB in 2007, many FRBs have been detected. But FRB 121102 is different - it is the only one known to repeat. As exciting as this might seem, SETI researchers are still unclear about what kind of message the FRB transmissions carry. Is it simply a signal telling other intelligent beings that life exists elsewhere in the universe? Does it encode blueprints to build a vessel that can travel through space? Sometimes promising leads in the search for aliens can turn out to be a false positive. Back in 1977, a team of astronomers studying radio transmissions from an observatory at Ohio State called the "Big Ear" recorded an unusual 72-second signal - it was so strong that team member Jerry Ehman scrawled "Wow!" next to the readout. But this year through the close-up observation of 266/P Christensen, a comet returning to the night sky nearly 40 years since the “Wow!” signal, the Center of Planetary Science has pinpointed the source of the mysterious transmission to the hydrogen cloud accompanying the comet. Maybe one day we will hear a real “hello” from intelligent beings from galaxies far far away, putting a definitive end to Fermi’s famous question. But then humankind will need to prepare for what comes next. Just like the old saying, be careful what you wish for. The Fermi Paradox II — Solutions and Ideas – Where Are All The Aliens. Credit: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell Source: phys.org/EarthSkyNews/sciencedaily/space.com
What are dark comets and how are they responsible for delivering water to the Earth? This is what a recent study published in Icarus hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated the origins of dark comets and their evolution throughout the history of the solar system, including how much water they could have potentially brought to Earth in the past. This study holds the potential to help astronomers better understand dark comets and the formation and evolution of planetary bodies throughout the solar system. Dark comets are often described as being a combination of asteroids and classified based on their unique behaviors, specifically their ability to accelerate without the aid of gravitational means, which researchers have previously hypothesized to be invisible gas jets emanating like traditional comets. Additionally, their physical characteristics consist of dark surfaces that could be hiding an icy subsurface, whereas traditional comets exhibit icy characteristics directly on their surface. Credit: Pixabay For the study, the researchers used computer models to analyze the number of dark comets that reside within the solar system, along with how they could have delivered water to the Earth deep in our planet’s ancient past. In the end, the team estimates that between 0.5 and 60 percent of all near-Earth objects could be dark comets while hypothesizing their origins are the main asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. This suggests that asteroids within the main asteroid belt could possess ice beneath their dark and dusty surfaces and could also imply that they could be the source of water that was delivered to the Earth long ago. "We think these objects came from the inner and/or outer main asteroid belt, and the implication of that is that this is another mechanism for getting some ice into the inner solar system," said Aster Taylor, who is a graduate student in the University of Michigan’s Department of Astronomy and lead author of the study. "There may be more ice in the inner main belt than we thought. There may be more objects like this out there. This could be a significant fraction of the nearest population. We don't really know, but we have many more questions because of these findings." What new discoveries about dark comets will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: Icarus, EurekAlert!
When we need medicine, we hop down to the local drugstore or pharmacy and have our prescriptions filled. But what happens when doctors or emergency responders are in remote areas with limited time and limited access? Where’s their pharmacy? MIT researchers tackled this problem by developing a portable unit that’s capable of producing drugs on demand. The concept is similar to another prototype that was developed by a group, also at MIT, earlier this year. However, the current portable pharmacy runs on yeast. Yes, yeast. Specifically, yeast of the Pichia pastoris strain. In their paper, published in Nature Communications, the team detailed how a small drop of yeast cells suspended in liquid can act as a bioreactor, manufacturing a single dose of a drug. “We altered the yeast so it could be more easily genetically modified, and could include more than one therapeutic in its repertoire,” said Timothy Lu, head of the Synthetic Biology Group at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics, and senior author of the study. The yeast is modified to express therapeutic proteins upon exposure to different chemical stimuli. These cells are also low maintenance in terms of food and care, but can express a large amount of proteins, making them ideal as natural bioreactors. “Imagine you were on Mars or in a remote desert, without access to a full formulary, you could program the yeast to produce drugs on demand locally,” Lu said. Of course using cells as bioreactors has been widely exploited by nearly every pharmaceutical company. The genius in Lu’s research lays in compressing the entire process into a microbioreactor that’s entirely portable and requires a tiny amount of cells. The magic involves a microfluidic chip that receives the chemical trigger and sends it to the yeast. Then, pressurized gas ensures the mixing process is efficient and complete. “This makes sure that the one milliliter (of liquid) is homogenous, and that is important because diffusion at these small scales, where there is no turbulence, takes a surprisingly long time,” said Rajeev Ram, the MIT professor who developed the microfluidic chip, and senior co-author of the study. Researchers monitor the environment of the cells at all time, and they can change what proteins the yeast are producing by flushing in new liquid with different chemical triggers. “You want to keep the cells because they are your factory,” said Ram. “But you also want to rapidly change their chemical environment, in order to change the trigger for protein production.” Next, in addition to refining the system, the team is looking for even more capabilities for the microreactors. “If you could engineer a single strain, or maybe even a consortia of strains that grow together, to manufacture combinations of biologics or antibodies, that could be a very powerful way of producing these drugs at a reasonable cost,” said Lu. Additional source: MIT news release
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