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Findings from first archaeology project in space

Space and time from Science Daily Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 7:55pm
The first-ever archeological survey in space has provided new insights into how astronauts use and adapt their living space on the International Space Station, which could influence the design of new space stations after the ISS is decommissioned.
Categories: Science

Scientists lay out revolutionary method to warm Mars

Space and time from Science Daily Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 7:54pm
Ever since we learned that the surface of planet Mars is cold and dead, people have wondered if there is a way to make it friendlier to life. The newly proposed method is over 5,000 times more efficient than previous schemes to globally warm Mars, representing a significant leap forward in our ability to modify the Martian environment.
Categories: Science

Two NASA astronauts may be stuck on the space station until February

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 2:09pm
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft had so many problems during its first crewed launch to the International Space Station that NASA officials aren’t sure whether it will be able to bring its crew back home as planned
Categories: Science

Scientists Discover New Geological Link Between Earth and Venus

Universe Today Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 1:20pm

Venus is sometimes called Earth’s sister planet because of their shared physical, geological, and atmospheric features. Scientists have discovered something new about Venus’ geology that’s reminding us of the similarities between the two planets. We have to look deep inside both planets to see what the researchers found.

There are a few reasons why the pair of planets are sometimes called twins. They have several characteristics in common:

  • They’re inner Solar System neighbours.
  • They’re both rocky.
  • They’re roughly the same size and mass.
  • They both have few craters, implying young surfaces.
  • They both have atmospheres and dense clouds.
  • They both have geological similarities and surface features like volcanoes, mountains, plateaus, and plains.

New research published in Nature Geoscience focuses on the last item in that list. Its title is “Ishtar Terra highlands on Venus raised by craton-like formation mechanisms.” The lead author is Fabio Capitanio, an Associate Professor from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.

Ishtar Terra is one of three large highland regions on Venus. Its topography includes mountains, plains, and plateaus. The Maxwell Montes mountain chain is in Ishtar Terra, and it’s about 11 km (6.8 mi) high, compared to Mt. Everest, which is 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi).

Ishtar Terra has highly complex terrain and appears to be heavily deformed. These are indications that Venus underwent powerful geological activity in its past.

This view of Venus is centred on its north pole. Ishtar Terra is the red region just below the image’s centre. The white region is Maxwell Montes, and the left-most red lobe is Lakshmi Planum. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00007, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18235544

Ishtar Terra also contains Lakshmi Planum, a two million square kilometre plateau about four km high and surrounded by extremely deformed terrain. It’s made of smooth lava flows and features two large shield volcanoes. Colette Patera is about 130 km in diameter, and Sacajawea Patera is about 200 km across and 1-2 km deep. Though Venus is tectonically inactive now, scientists think that ancient tectonic activity is responsible for the region’s wild topography.

Click on the image to explore an interactive 3D map of Ishtar Terra at Sketchfab by user v7x. Image Credit: Sketchfab/v7x

The new research in Nature Geoscience zeroes in on a specific part of geology called cratons. Cratons are the ancient geological cores of Earth’s continents. They’re stable parts of Earth’s lithosphere that are usually found in the center of the planet’s continental plates. Cratons have survived Earth’s extensive history of continental rifting and merging. They’re typically composed of extremely durable basement rock and have deep roots that can extend several hundred kilometres into the planet’s mantle.

Some cratons date from the Precambrian era, more than 2.5 billion years ago. Others may be even older and could date back to the Earth’s early days during the Hadean and Archaean Eons.

In this new work, Capitanio and his co-researchers used data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and high-performance computer simulations to investigate the formation of Ishtar Terra more deeply. They found that Ishtar Terra may have formed the same way that Earth’s cratons may have formed.

“The structures emerging in this model provide topography, gravity and crustal thicknesses remarkably comparable to the plateaus of Venus.”

From “Ishtar Terra highlands on Venus raised by craton-like formation mechanisms.”

On Earth, plateaus and belts of mountains like Ishtar Terra would clearly result from colliding continental plates. Ishtar Terra is similar to the Tibetan Plateau, and continental collision is the primary driver behind its formation. Something else must be behind Ishtar Terra and Venus’s other terrae because the planet lacks plate tectonics. But Ishtar Terra shares something particular with Earth. It has a thick crustal floor similar to Earth’s cratons.

This suggests that the planets have or had processes in common. Ishtar Terra and Venus’ other terrae may have risen from the planet’s hot interior. While there are several competing explanations for the formation of Earth’s cratons, one is the molten plume model. It states that rising plumes of molten rock came from deep within Earth’s mantle and built up thick layers with the cratons on top.

“The study challenges our understanding of how planets evolve,” lead author Capitanio said. “We did not expect Venus, with its scorching 460°C surface temperature and lack of plate tectonics, to possess such complex geological features.”

While Venus doesn’t have plate tectonics, it does have a hot lithosphere. The planet’s surface temperature is about 460°C (860°F). The heat extends into the lithosphere, which is hotter than Earth’s due to Venus’s runaway greenhouse effect. The surface simply can’t shed heat the way Earth does. The high heat means that Venus’s lithosphere is probably thinner than Earth’s. While Earth’s lithosphere can be as thick as 200 km, maybe even thicker, Venus’s is only about 50-100 km thick. Since it’s so much thinner, it’s also weaker.

“Venus’s hot lithosphere might make it a good analogue of early Earth and might enable the same types of continent-forming processes that occurred on Earth,” the researchers write in a briefing from Nature. “Our focus was on Ishtar Terra, the broadest of the plateaus, for which we found that the topography, crustal thicknesses and gravity signals are consistent with our simulations when the modelled lithosphere is about 10–50 times weaker than Earth’s.”

This figure from the research compares observations (a, c, e) with modelled results (b, d, f). The columns are topography, crust thickness, and gravity anomaly at 194 million years. “The structures emerging in this model provide topography, gravity and crustal thicknesses remarkably comparable to the plateaus of
Venus,” the researchers explain. Image Credit: Capitiano et al. 2024.

The thin lithosphere favours “the emplacement of a thick magmatic crust on top of a deep residual
depleted mantle,” the authors write in their research.

“This finding provides a fascinating new perspective on Venus and its potential links to early Earth,” Capitanio said. “The features we found on Venus are strikingly similar to Earth’s early continents, suggesting that the dynamics of Venus’ past may have been more similar to Earth’s than previously thought.”

The research shows that despite their differences, divergent rocky planets can share underlying mechanisms. Spotting these cratons or craton-associated mechanisms on another planet can help scientists understand Earth. “By studying similar features on Venus, we hope to unlock the secrets of Earth’s early history,” Associate Professor Capitanio said.

Venus is like the Solar System’s plan B. If life couldn’t make it work on Earth, maybe it could’ve worked on Venus. There’s evidence that Venus may have once had liquid water and used to be in the habitable zone, though that’s not certain. In any case, while Earth is resplendent with life, Venus is far too hot.

Earth’s ancient cratons are a part of Earth’s story. On our planet, geology, life, and the planet’s atmosphere are all intricately connected. By recognizing what Earth and Venus have in common and how they are also so different, researchers can learn more about Earth’s trajectory toward a living planet.

Future missions to Venus are in the works, and they should provide even more explanations for the sister planets’ divergent outcomes.

“Our research has paved the way for future missions to Venus, such as DAVINCI, VERITAS, and EnVision,” Capitanio said. “These missions will provide further insights into Venus’ geological history and its connection to Earth.”

The post Scientists Discover New Geological Link Between Earth and Venus appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Science

Leeches use their whole bodies to entomb and eat ultra-fast worms

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 12:28pm
Blackworms are ultra-fast swimmers, and they tangle up into worm balls to protect themselves from predators – but leeches have an ingenious method of catching them called “spiral entombment”
Categories: Science

Could Mars become habitable with the help of glitter-like iron rods?

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 12:00pm
If we want to terraform the Red Planet to make it better able to host microbial life, tiny rods of iron and aluminium may be the answer
Categories: Science

Bird deaths from building strikes may be double past estimates

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 12:00pm
An estimate of annual bird fatalities due to building collisions in the US brings the figure to more than 1 billion – it is the first to include deaths from injuries after the strike
Categories: Science

The surprising connections between maths and poetry

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
From the Fibonacci sequence to the Bell numbers, there is more overlap between mathematics and poetry than you might think, says Peter Rowlett, who has found his inner poet
Categories: Science

The Decameron review: 14th-century romp is a veiled satire of today

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
Netflix's adaptation of The Decameron adds style and literary tropes to a licentious Renaissance classic. But it keeps the original's attacks on class and power, while also providing food for thought about today's elite tech preppers, says Bethan Ackerley
Categories: Science

Mangrove forests celebrated in stunning photographs

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
See some of the top entries to this year's Mangrove Photography Awards, showing the beauty and fragility of these unique ecosystems
Categories: Science

Intimate nature documentary is an ode to an oak

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
Lush and vibrant cinematography plus a "cast" of real animals make Heart of an Oak an enthralling celebration of the natural world
Categories: Science

The best livestream so far this year? A corpse flower slowly blooming

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
Forget videos by gamers or influencers. For a real online thrill, watch the world's biggest flower emerging in a former web designer's greenhouse, says Annalee Newitz
Categories: Science

What becomes of the broken-hearted? Scientists investigate

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
Some write poetry when broken-hearted, others label it "love trauma syndrome" and use scientific methods to investigate. Feedback explores an acronym-heavy study into the lovelorn
Categories: Science

The science is clear: repeatedly whipping a horse won't help it learn

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
After the release of a shocking video showing Olympic rider Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse, it is time for equestrians to educate themselves on the science of horse training, says Christa Lesté-Lasserre
Categories: Science

Ambitious story of how life shapes Earth ends superb trilogy

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
The dynamics of how plants and animals change Earth is central to this last book in a trilogy by Other Minds author and "scuba-diving philosopher" Peter Godfrey-Smith
Categories: Science

Critics of the International Space Station are missing the point

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 11:00am
As the International Space Station comes to the end of its life, we should recognise its biggest achievement – showing that a better world is possible
Categories: Science

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ verses

Why Evolution is True Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 10:30am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “purpose,” once again deals  with the holy books, but this time Mo’s Qur’an. The Bible doesn’t have anything like the first verse; Jesus may have died a virgin, like his mother.

Here is one translation of the surah and verse at hand (33:40); note that Mo gets special connubial privileges:

O Prophet! We have made lawful for you your wives to whom you have paid their ˹full˺ dowries as well as those ˹bondwomen˺ in your possession, whom Allah has granted you. And ˹you are allowed to marry˺ the daughters of your paternal uncles and aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and aunts, who have emigrated like you. Also ˹allowed for marriage is˺ a believing woman who offers herself to the Prophet ˹without dowry˺ if he is interested in marrying her—˹this is˺ exclusively for you, not for the rest of the believers. We know well what ˹rulings˺ We have ordained for the believers in relation to their wives and those ˹bondwomen˺ in their possession. As such, there would be no blame on you. And Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

And the second (33:36):

It is not for a believing man or woman—when Allah and His Messenger decree a matter—to have any other choice in that matter. Indeed, whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has clearly gone ˹far˺ astray.

Categories: Science

Conspiracy theorists may not really believe their outlandish ideas

New Scientist Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 10:00am
People who claim to believe in conspiracy theories may not actually deep down, which researchers uncovered by asking if they thought Canada had an elite army of genetically engineered, super intelligent, giant raccoons
Categories: Science

X-ray imagery of vibrating diamond opens avenues for quantum sensing

Computers and Math from Science Daily Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 9:29am
Scientists at three research institutions capture the pulsing motion of atoms in diamond, uncovering the relationship between the diamond's strain and the behavior of the quantum information hosted within.
Categories: Science

X-ray imagery of vibrating diamond opens avenues for quantum sensing

Matter and energy from Science Daily Feed - Wed, 08/07/2024 - 9:29am
Scientists at three research institutions capture the pulsing motion of atoms in diamond, uncovering the relationship between the diamond's strain and the behavior of the quantum information hosted within.
Categories: Science

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