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Taiwan’s first ever minister of digital affairs has transformed politics, using online platforms and AI to give power to the country’s citizens – with lessons for us all

Robotic companions are a mainstay of sci-fi series everywhere. From R2D2 to Johnny 5, these characters typically have a supporting role in the story and are helpful to their human companions. But what if they were integral to the humans in the story? So much so that they couldn’t live without their robotic compatriots? That’s the idea behind Biobot, which was given a NIAC grant in 2018 – why not use a robotic companion to carry supporting equipment on human extravehicular activities (EVAs) on other planets?

If you watch the footage from the Apollo missions, you can see how awkward it is for the astronauts to bend over to pick things up. Also, these extraordinarily naturally fit and gifted people seem to fall over an awful lot, given how coordinated they are on Earth. That’s probably because a 61 kg pack on their back is helping to keep them alive.

Each moonwalker had to carry a life support system on their suit to maintain conditions inside the suit that allowed them to breathe and not cook to death. This portable life support system (PLSS) weighed almost as much as the astronauts. It dramatically changed their center of gravity from its typical interalized location to somewhere behind their shoulder blades. That limited the astronaut’s mobility and, even with the light lunar gravity, limited the time they could participate in an EVA before becoming exhausted.

Alternatively, in microgravity, EVAs have taken place using umbilical cords and a larger life support system inside the space station or shuttle. This has proven successful, but managing the umbilical cords requires a significant amount of overhead—typically, another astronaut manages it for the person doing the EVA. Given the importance of productively utilizing all of an astronaut’s time, it would be better not to require that helping hand.

Dr. David Akin of the University of Maryland’s Department of Aerospace Engineering considered all that, and his solution is Biobot. The final design is a small rover capable of following an astronaut around on an EVA and attaching to their suit via an umbilical cord that the rover manages. As part of the NIAC grant Dr. Akin received, he and his team looked at potential design trade-offs as well a developed a working prototype of the system.

First, let’s discuss some advantages. Biobot removes the heavy weight from the astronaut’s back, freeing them from carrying it around and moving their center of gravity back to a more familiar place. It can also allow PLSS designers to add components that would otherwise be considered unsuitable for fitting into a backpack itself, such as radiative cooling systems.

Some UMD students testing an early prototype.
Credit – Akin et al.

It can also serve as a platform for holding collected samples or tools necessary for the mission. It can even let the astronaut ride on it in a pinch as a last resort in emergencies. Since it is mobile, the umbilical cord that would typically tie the astronaut to a base station is no longer an issue, and since it is designed to traverse any terrain an astronaut can, it should be capable of keeping up with them.

From some of the pictures in the NIAC final report, it appears the engineers working on the project had fun developing the system. They successfully showed a proof-of-concept of the basic functionality of what they expected the Biobot to do. They also plan to continue developing it, including a test phase at NASA’s “Rockyard” planetary surface simulator. 

However, no additional NASA funding has been forthcoming. Though the paper mentions volunteer student support, it seems the Biobot idea is on hold for now. But someday, astronauts exploring the lunar or Martian surface might have a robotic companion with them that can provide both comic relief and life-giving support.

Learn More:
Akin et al. – BioBot: Investigating an Alternative Paradigm for Planetary EVA
UT – SpaceX Shows Off Its New Extravehicular Activity Suit
UT – Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon’s South Pole
UT – Astronauts Could Rely on Algae as the Perfect Life Support Partner

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of BioBot
Credit – Akin et al.

The post Robotic Rover Could Support Astronauts on Moonwalks appeared first on Universe Today.

More than 1300 square kilometres of cropland worldwide was covered by solar panels in 2018, an area that could be producing 4 quadrillion calories per year

The Matrix star Keanu Reeves’s debut sci-fi novel is out this month, written in collaboration with old hand China Miéville, and we also have new books from Adam Roberts and Aliette de Bodard

Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and interest will come around again. We are seeing this today with UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects, now technically terms UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena).

Not surprisingly the BBC wants to get in on this UFO action, and they are doing that with their Paranormal series, which they are promoting on their news outlet. They clearly are trying to remain respectable, and not completely abandon their journalistic integrity, but they predictably fall for all the usual fallacies that skeptics have explained many times over decades.

They focus on an incident in Wales in 1977 at the Broad Haven elementary school. This is often referred to as the Roswell of Wales. There were reports that day of something strange going on, including a silver humanoid walking around town, and possible UFO sightings. Some of the students thought they saw something in a field near the school’s playground, and many students then went out to take a look. What UFO believers point to as “compelling” evidence that they saw an actual space craft is that the students, under questioning by the school staff, all drew similar images of what they saw – a pretty typical flying saucer. The BBC captions a picture of some of these drawings: “The children reportedly drew near identical images of the UFO, which captured widespread media attention.”

This is where subjectivity comes in to bias reporting. What the BBC calls “near identical images” I would consider vaguely similar images. This is where scientific and critical thinking comes in. Scientists often have to address the question of whether or no similar phenomena have a common origin. Do two species with a similar feature derive that feature from a common ancestor? Are the pyramids of the Americas and the pyramids of Egypt related? The standard method for determining a common origin amount to the details – do the phenomena share details that would defy coincidence? With the pyramids the answer is clearly no – they look superficially similar, but not in details.

Look at the UFO drawings. They are all variations on a common flying saucer theme, but do not match in any significant details. Perhaps most importantly, there are no new details, not already part of UFO lore, that are shared by the drawings. How come they match at all? Because the flying saucer was already part of the culture. We generally underestimate how pervasive culture is, and how much even young children absorb. They drew flying saucers because that’s what UFOs look like.

In other similar cases children have eventually come out (often as adults) and admitted they started the whole thing by making up a sighting, but then the other students joined in. No one has come forward in the Broad Haven case, but that is not surprising. Perhaps no one did make it up, and it started with a genuine sighting of something the child could not identify, and that triggered the rest. Harrier jets were in operation in the area. The military did come in and investigate the site and found no evidence of anything physical. And someone did later come forward to admit they walked around town that day in a silver firefighting suit as a prank, which was likely the trigger of the whole episode.

We may not have a complete and rock solid explanation for exactly what happened that day – but we also have no compelling evidence that there was alien activity there, and there are plenty of mundane explanations that cannot be ruled out, and fit the available evidence quite well.

There is another point worth emphasizing. The BBC reports: “And one aerospace expert tells the BBC that in 2024, thanks to everyone having a phone in their pocket and many people using apps to follow air traffic, we are in ‘a much stronger position to be able to track what’s known and what’s unknown’.”

We are also in a much stronger position to conclude that aliens are not visiting the Earth, at least not grays zipping around in flying saucers and occasionally crashing. Like many such phenomena, time is a great test. In 1967 with the Patterson-Gimlin film of an apparent Bigfoot, one might be forgiven for thinking that it’s possible for a population of large primates to be living in the Pacific Northwest that has so far evaded scientific detection. But here we are, almost 60 years later, and we still do not have a shred of hard evidence for Bigfoot. If Atlantis existed, by now there would be museums full of Atlantean artifacts. If there were a JFK assassination conspiracy, that would likely have been declassified by now. If the moon landings were hoaxed, that lie would have been exposed a long time ago.

And of course, if aliens were buzzing the Earth, the existence of so many smart phones would dramatically increase the chance of someone catching a good photo or video, one that withstands technical examination. But we have nothing – not one solid piece of evidence. We are still living in the same realm of fuzzy evidence – because, as I often say, the ambiguity is the phenomenon. If UFOs were alien, then the evidence should get better over time. If the fuzziness is the phenomenon, then it should remain so, because whenever the evidence is more clear it turns out to be something identifiable and mundane.

This is one explanation for the cycle. I do thing that “the public” gets bored with specific paranormal phenomena because there is nothing there. The excitement is largely around the idea that a revelation is right around the corner. It makes sense – a revelation should be coming soon if something so big were actually happening. You can only string people out for so long, because they move one. They may still think there is something to it, but the emotional connection and excitement fade. There are ghost hunting shows where they never, ever, find a ghost. There are bigfoot hunting shows where they never find a bigfoot. Paranormal shows are entirely about mystery, about the unknown. They are a giant tease, and the audience is made to feel as if the hammer is about to fall. But it never does.

People get bored, and the phenomenon recedes to the shadows where it awaits a new naive generation that can become infatuated with the mystery all over again.

The post BBC Gets Into UFOs first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Despite its growing popularity, there has been little scientific investigation into parents who give babies solid food to feed themselves, known as baby-led weaning

Syntrichia caninervis is found in some of the most extreme places on Earth and can survive conditions that would kill almost any other organism, making it a potential candidate for colonising Mars

Everything old is new once again, as COVID-19 quacks rehash old cancer quack claims that chemotherapy doesn't work in order to sell their preferred cancer quackery.

The post Paul Marik: Disparaging chemotherapy in order to sell cancer quackery first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Universe Today has had the recent privilege of investigating a multitude of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, supernovae, and neutron stars, and how they both individually and collectively contribute to our greater understanding of our place in the universe.

Here, Universe Today discusses the growing field of exomoons with Dr. David Kipping, who is an assistant professor in the Astronomy Department at Columbia University, along with his PhD students, Benjamin Cassese and Daniel Yahalomi, regarding the importance of studying exomoons, the benefits and challenges, potential exomoon candidates, how exomoons can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and advice for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying exomoons. Therefore, what is the importance of studying exomoons?

Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today, “There’s four reasons to do this: 1) How common are Earth-like worlds? Exomoons may be a significant contributing factor to the cosmic census of habitable bodies; 2) How unique is the Earth-Moon system? The Moon is thought to have played an influential role in the formation and evolution of the Earth, and thus when we detect an Earth-twin we should naturally wonder if it has a Moon twin too.”

Dr. Kipping continues, “3) What are the moon formation channels? In the Solar System, we see at least three pathways, captures (e.g. Triton), impact (e.g. the Moon) and disk formation (e.g. Galilean moons). We would like to understand if there are other methods, and what the details and limitations are of the three methods we know of; 4) When we point HWO [Habitable Worlds Observatory] at an Earth-twin, a Moon-like moon would be unresolvable and thus its light will mix with that of the planet and potentially create false-positive biosignatures. Knowing about moons is vital to our long-term dream of finding life.”

Along with the Earth’s Moon, our solar system consists of more than 200 moons, but only a handful of them are targeted for astrobiology-related research, most notably two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, Europa and Ganymede, and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Titan, but all of which have presented significant evidence for possessing interior oceans of liquid water. Along with finding out if the Earth-Moon system is unique, exomoons can teach us if our own solar system is unique given the wide range of moon types, shapes, and sizes, and especially their formation and evolution.

One possible reason for the Earth-Moon uniqueness is due to the tidal forces caused by the two bodies tugging on each other which maintains Earth’s relatively stable axis. As a result, the Earth very slightly wobbles like a spinning top over the course of 26,000 years, meaning its axial tilt only changes by a few degrees during that time, which has allowed our planet to maintain relatively stable climates, enabling life to both survive and thrive. This contrasts to smaller planets like Mars that wobble wildly over the course of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, resulting in large changes in its axial tilt between 15 degrees and 45 degrees, resulting in shifts of its polar caps and drastic climate variations. For context, both Earth’s and Mars’ axial tilts are currently around 25 degrees. But given all the reasons listed by Dr. Kipping, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying exomoons?

“Some benefits are that finding a moon would automatically tell us more about its host planet,” Cassese tells Universe Today. “For example, we would be able to tell right away that the planet hasn’t gone through any dramatic orbit changes due to scattering with other planets, since that would likely have stripped the moon away. We can also help use the moon’s orbit to measure the mass of the planet, and even of the star, though there are other ways to measure both of those as well.”

“Moons are very difficult to detect and really push the data we receive to their limits,” Yahalomi tells Universe Today. “Therein lies both a challenge and an opportunity. In pursuit of detecting the smallest signals in these datasets, we need to develop new methods and techniques of extremely precise data analysis. I’m working on creating a new analytic framework for studying the gravitational effect that moons have on their host planets. We are working on methods to differentiate between the wobbles caused by moons and neighboring planets in the same stellar system. Without the goal of detecting moons, we would likely not be motivated to develop these statistical techniques, which can then (hopefully) have larger reaching applications.”

As of this writing, NASA has confirmed the existence of 5,678 exoplanets ranging from terrestrial (rocky) worlds to gas giants much larger than Jupiter. in contrast, there have been zero exomoons confirmed to exist anywhere in the cosmos, quite possibly due to the difficulty to detect them, as noted by Yahalomi. Of the 5,678 confirmed exoplanets, 4,193 have been confirmed using the transit method which detects extremely small dips (approximately 1 percent) in starlight when the exoplanet passes in front of, or transits, its parent star.

These dips in starlight are so small that astronomers require several transits to confirm its existence. Therefore, trying to detect exomoons, which could be much smaller than the exoplanet they orbit, is even more difficult. While there are currently no confirmed exomoons, what are some interesting exomoon candidates, including exomoon candidates that these researchers have studied?

“The two candidates we have announced are Kepler-1625 b-i and Kepler 1708 b-I,” Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today. “They both orbit gas giants at relatively wide separations from their star, and both are surprisingly large, 1625b-i is about a Neptune and 1708b-i is a mini-Neptune. In other ways they are quite different, 1708b orbits in a tight Europa-like orbit, seemingly coplanar with the planetary orbit. In contrast, 1625b-i appears inclined and at a much wider orbit, looking more like a captured moon. For 1625b-i, we have a mass thanks to transit timing variations of the primary planet and that lands in agreement with our radius measurement obtained from the dip of the moon in front of the star. For 1708b-i, we only have the dip (just two transits), however the false positive rate is well measured here to be ~1%, giving us dome confidence in the signal.”

As noted, of the more than 200 moons in our solar system, only a handful are currently targets for astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth. These include two of Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Titan. All four have presented evidence for possessing interior oceans of liquid water, with Titan being the only one with liquid bodies on its surface, although comprised of liquid methane and ethane as opposed to liquid water.

Europa has been previously explored by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft while obtaining incredible images of the moon’s small surface. However, the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which launches this October, will conduct the most in-depth investigation into Europa’s habitability potential when it arrives in 2030. It will conduct 50 flybys of the small moon, sending back the high-resolutions images of its surface while using its suite of powerful instruments to determine if its interior liquid water ocean can harbor life, as we know it as we don’t know it.

Ganymede has also been studied by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft but the European Space Agency’s JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft, which is currently en route to Jupiter with a planned arrival of 2031, hopes to also conduct the most in-depth investigation pertaining to Ganymede’s habitability potential, as well. For Saturn’s moon, Enceladus and Titan, both have been mapped and studied in-depth by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft over the course of its 13-year mission studying Saturn and its many moons.

During this time, Cassini both observed and flew through geysers emanating from Enceladus’ south polar region, indicating a liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust, along with landing a probe on Titan’s surface, revealing rounded boulders possibly formed from flowing liquid methane or ethane. Additionally, evidence has suggested that Titan possesses an interior liquid ocean comprised of water, as opposed to methane and ethane on its surface. Given the habitability potential for these moons, what can exomoons teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

“There are at least two ways moons can affect life elsewhere in the galaxy,” Cassese tells Universe Today. “First, moons can influence and stabilize their host planets [see above]. The other is that moons themselves could be great places for life. Some of the largest liquid water reserves in our solar system exist on moons like Europa, and it’s possible that other moons have similar ingredients that we think are essential for life. If moons are anywhere as near common as planets, the potentially habitable real estate of the galaxy would be much larger than we currently appreciate.”

Yahalomi tells Universe Today, “From what we currently know about planet formation and from our solar system where there are hundreds of moons, there really should be exomoons around many of the exoplanets that we have found. Therefore, if we find that there aren’t exomoons, that would reveal that there is something unique in our solar system and something missing in our understanding of planet formation. As we only know about life on Earth, currently, understanding the larger context of planetary demographics and thus better understanding how common or unique our Solar System truly is, could aid in our understanding of the likeliness of life beyond Earth.”

Like the field of exoplanets, studying exomoons involves a myriad of scientific backgrounds and disciplines to decipher copious amounts of data, including astrophysics, computer science, planetary geology, planetary atmospheres, data science, just to name a few. Additionally, powerful instruments like the aforementioned Habitable Worlds Observatory are required to detect exomoons given their infinitesimally small sizes within the data. It is through this constant collaboration between scientists and use of key instruments that will enable scientists to someday confirm the existence of the first exomoon within the cosmos. Therefore, what advice can the researchers off to upcoming students who wish to pursue studying exomoons?

“It’s a fascinating and rapidly growing area,” Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today. “We are finally in the era where we can detect moons akin to those in the Solar System using JWST. Further, there’s rapidly growing interest in discovering very non-Solar System like moons, such as moons around free-floating planets either using JWST of young systems in Orion (google JUMBOs for example) or using the upcoming Roman telescope with microlensing techniques. We are about to breach the detection threshold in a convincing way.”

How will exomoons help us better understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Exomoons: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth? appeared first on Universe Today.

Both the Milky Way and a galaxy known as M87 have supermassive black holes at their core. These are the two largest black holes we know about and the Event Horizon Telescope has just captured stunning images of their event horizons. A new paper looks at what we might expect from a next generation EHT and highlights twelve targets that should be top of the list. 

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is an international collaboration that uses a global network of radio telescopes. Connecting multiple telescopes together in a technique known as interferometry enables them all to work together, forming one massive virtual telescope the size of the distance between them. In April 2019, the EHT achieved a historic milestone by capturing the first-ever image of a black hole, located at the centre of the galaxy M87.

The ALMA array in Chile. Once ALMA was added to the Event Horizon Telescope, it increased the EHT’s power by a factor of 10. Image: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), O. Dessibourg

Black holes like that in M87 are most definitely the target of the EHT. They are regions in space with such a strong gravitational forces that nothing, not even light, can escape. They are formed from the remnants of massive stars that collapse under their own gravity, creating an object known as a singularity which has infinite density. Surrounding the singularity is the event horizon, beyond which no information or matter can return and it is this which is of particular interest to EHT.

Several extensions to the array are planned to enhance the quality of images. Doing so will improve its resolution allowing for a larger number of black holes to be studied. Theoretical studies of EHT images of both Sgr A at the centre of our Galaxy and the black hole at the centre of M87 favour models with dynamically significant magnetic fields.

Magnetically arrested disk (MAD) models, which power jet mechanisms, have important implications for the relationship between supermassive black holes and the evolution of its host galaxy. The extensions require new dishes to be added to the infrastructure and many of existing telescopes require upgrades. On completion, simultaneous observations in the frequency range 86-230-345 GHz will be possible, facilitating new studies. 

In the paper authored by Xinyue Alice Zhang from the Center for Astrophysics at the Harvard & Smithsonian and team they report upon their attempt to study the 12 most promising supermassive black hole targets for the EHT. 

The targets were honed in on following an exhaustive analysis which started off with the ETHER database, a list of 3.8 million sources. This was then narrowed down to those with a flux density (signal strength) that allowed mass measurements to be taken optically. A fair chunk of this was done by hand! Further sources with large angular sizes are being constantly added to the database so the number of possible targets will rise in time. 

The target galaxies identified to date include; IC1459, NGC45elliptical94, NGC3998, NGC4261, NGC2663, NGC3894, M84, NGC4552, 3C 317, NGC315, NGC1218 and NGC5077. These are all suitable for future EHT targets but they all exhibit some similarities for example many of them are elliptical galaxies but a few are classed as lenticular galaxies.

Source : Accessing a New Population of Supermassive Black Holes with Extensions to the Event Horizon Telescope

The post What’s Next for the Event Horizon Telescope? Twelve Possible New Targets appeared first on Universe Today.

Over the last several months, Universe Today has explored a plethora of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, and supernovae, and how each of these unique disciplines continue to teach is about the cosmos and our place throughout its vastness.

Here, Universe Today discusses the field of neutron stars with Dr. Stuart Shapiro, who is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy and NCSA Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, regarding the importance of studying neutron stars, the benefits and challenges, the most intriguing aspect about neutron stars he’s studied throughout his career, and any advice he can offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying neutron stars. Therefore, what is the importance of studying neutron stars?

“Neutron stars are fundamental constituents of the universe,” Dr. Shapiro tells Universe Today. “They are detected throughout our Galaxy as isolated radio pulsars and as X-ray sources accreting gas from normal stars that serve as their binary companions. Neutron stars are also observed in distant galaxies as gravitational wave and gamma-ray emitters during the merger of two neutron stars in a binary system. The interior of neutron stars has the density of an atomic nucleus, some 14 orders of magnitude larger than typical materials on Earth. Such high nuclear densities cannot be reached in a lab on Earth, neutron stars provide an effective lab for studying matter and the laws of physics at extreme densities.”

Animation depicting a rapidly-spinning neutron star, also called a pulsar. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab)

The potential existence of neutron stars was first proposed by Fritz Zwicky and Walter Baade in 1933—which was also less than two years after the neutron was officially discovered—at a meeting of the American Physical Society. The goal of these discussions was to ascertain how supernovae were created, but they instead deduced that neutron stars resulted from supernovae, with the original star becoming ultra-dense with neutrons after the explosion.

However, research interest in neutron stars did not occur until several decades later in 1967 due to scientists deducing that they were far too small to be observed with the available technology, and only after neutron stars were found to exhibit large magnetic fields due to their rapid spin rates. Since then, neutron star research has gradually expanded, including using neutron stars to make the first detection of gravitational waves in 2017. Therefore, given their unique characteristics, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying neutron stars?

Dr. Shapiro tells Universe Today, “We can’t collide neutron stars in an accelerator, as we do for, say, high energy protons and electrons, to study elementary particles. But nature provides us with neutron star collisions when binary neutron stars collide. We have already detected a couple of collision events when LIGO [Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] observed the radiated gravitational waves, and more detections are expected in the near future.”

Given their extreme density, this means the size of neutron stars are incredibly small, averaging only 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter, or the size of a small city, with a mass of 1.4 times the Sun, meaning one teaspoon of a neutron star weighs approximately one billion tons on Earth. Henceforth, Dr. Shapiro notes these results are extremely difficult to replicate in a laboratory setting. Additionally, their spin rates have been found to be as high as 716 rotations per second, or approximately 0.24 the speed of light if an observer was standing on its surface, with an unconfirmed finding indicating a neutron star exhibiting 1,122 revolutions per second. There are also different types of neutron stars, including pulsars which Dr. Shapiro mentioned, and magnetars which are highly magnetized neutron stars.

Size comparison between a neutron star and Manhattan. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

While neutron stars don’t get as much publicity as other stars, it is currently hypothesized that approximately one billion neutron stars currently exist within the Milky Way Galaxy. This might seem like a large number, except it is estimated there are approximately 100 billion stars in the Milky Galaxy, meaning neutron stars could potentially comprise only one percent of our galaxy’s star population. Therefore, what are some of the most intriguing aspects about neutron stars that Dr. Shapiro has studied throughout his career?

Dr. Shapiro tells Universe Today, “One of the properties my collaborators and I uncovered was the ability of rotation to support neutron stars of higher mass than nonrotating spherical stars. It is well known that nonrotating neutron stars have a maximum mass of a couple of times the mass of the sun, the precise value depending on the equation of state, i.e. the precise nature of the pressure law for nuclear matter that supports the star against gravitational collapse.”

Dr. Shapiro continues, “However, we found that if the star is spinning, then it can support at larger mass. The maximum mass increases by about 20 per cent if it rotates like a rigid body (i.e. uniform rotation) but can increase much more if it rotates differentially, with its spin rate very high at the center and decreasing toward the surface. Stars rotating uniformly above the nonrotating mass limit we called ‘supramassive’, while stars rotating differentially above the supramassive mass limit we called ‘hypermassive’. Supramassive and hypermassive stars are likely formed when binary neutron stars merge, at least until they shed their angular momentum (i.e. Spin) via gravitational radiation and magnetic fields.”

Like black holes or other celestial objects that we rarely observe directly, the study of neutron stars involves a lot of theoretical research where researchers use computer models to simulate their hypotheses and use powerful instruments like LIGO to confirm these hypotheses down the road. Therefore, the study of neutron stars involves several scientific backgrounds, including theoretical astrophysics theory of general relativity, computational astrophysics, computer science, among others. Additionally, one exciting aspect of science is coining new terms, as the terms supramassive and hypermassive were coined by Dr. Shapiro and his colleagues. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Shapiro offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying neutron stars?

Dr. Shapiro tells Universe Today, “Neutron stars have properties that deal with all four of the fundamental forces of nature: gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and weak particle interactions. To best study neutron stars, one should thus acquire a strong and broad background in physics. Since the equations describing neutron stars in various states are often very complicated, they must be solved numerically on supercomputers. So aspiring students should also acquire a good background in computational physics if they want to work at the cutting edge.”

How will neutron stars teach us about our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Neutron Stars: Why study them? What makes them so fascinating? appeared first on Universe Today.

The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising candidate for Mars colonization thanks to its extreme ability to tolerate harsh conditions lethal to most life forms. The moss is well known for its ability to tolerate drought conditions, but researchers now report that it can also survive freezing temperatures as low as 196 C, high levels of gamma radiation, and simulated Martian conditions involving these three stressors combined. In all cases, prior dehydration seemed to help the plants cope.

Here we have three videos by music expert Rick Beato explaining why rock/pop music (the distinction isn’t quite clear to me) has gone badly downhill since its glory days, which just HAPPENED to coincide with my teenage years and young adult years. Yes, yes, I have heard those who tell me—and there’s some truth in it—that people always think that the best music is the music that they grew up with. But Beato, who is 13 years younger than I, didn’t grow up with the best music, and yet he still recognizes it as music from 1960-1980 or so (I’m being generous with the 1980 ending). Beato wasn’t even born when the Beatles formed, and was only eight when the Beatles broke up. And yet he clearly recognizes them as one of the apogees of rock music.

This first video  has already garnered nearly 1,800,000  views in only 4 days since its release. The YouTube notes:

In this episode, I discuss the crisis in music in two acts: Act I – Music is too Easy to Make Act II – Music is too Easy to Consume …and their cumulative negative effect.

If you’ve listened to Beato’s earlier videos, you know why he thinks music is getting worse: autotuning, drum machines, unimaginative tunes, lame lyrics, a lack of diversity and, of course, the business itself, which rakes in the dosh without the big expense of live recording in studios with real human beings. He adds, in Act II, that music is simply too easy to access, with the result that people don’t really pay attention to it.

And he doesn’t just palaver: he gives recordings to demonstrate his points.

It’s probably useless to email me telling me I’ve missed groups as good (or better than!) the Beatles. I’ve never found such claims to be even close to accurate.

I was glad in the next video to see Beato compare Taylor Swift, a phenom as popular now as the Beatles used to be, with the Fab Four, and to find Swift overrated. (Beato claims he likes her songs, even though I don’t think he really does.) And, at any rate, her songs are written by consortiums of writers.  I’ve listened to plenty of Swift because of her popularity, and I just don’t see a “there” there. But the hubbub around her is just as frenetic as it was around the Beatles. What gives?

Of course a rock song is not going to be great without a great tune, and words are secondary. But words are nevertheless important, for you must have both to have a great song. In the third video, whose title gives the upshot, Beato shows us some lyrics of modern rock and compares them to words from the days of yore (note his emphasis on the Beatles). When seen nakedly, without a tune, modern lyrics are absolutely pathetic, as Beato notes in the title. Even the overrated Beyoncé and her monster hit “Texas Hold “Em” (watch the video, which is dreadful) come in for a deserved drubbing.

Hip-hop and rap don’t move me at all, and it’s not because it’s “black people’s music”.  So was soul music, but it’s infinitely better: great tunes, complexity, and decent lyrics.  Here are four from my long list of best rock music (under the “soul category”, and available for the asking), each better than any rap or hip hop ditty ever issued. (Yes, of course I recognize that this is subjective, but see Beato’s analysis above.)

It was hard to pick four out of my very long list, but here goes:

I don’t much like the article below, from Stat Significant, as it doesn’t describe how to distinguish different categories of music, but it does give the right answer: rock was at its best from 1960-1980:

Rock burned bright for two decades, and then it was gone, sequestered out of the mainstream. Since then, this singular genre has been rebranded as “classic rock” or (worse yet) “dad rock,” while its predecessors have fragmented into subgenres such as indie, folk, and alternative.

Click to read, but remember, it’s not a great piece.

h/t: Erik

Below are three articles, the first one in The Economist, the second in the NYT, and the latest from Colin Wright’s Substack site, showing that both the U.S. government and WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health: the most influential organization dealing with doctors and therapists who provide care for gender dysphoric and trans people) have been pressuring scientists to get rid of minimum age limits for “affirmative care”. (WPATH, by the way, though purporting to be a “World Professional Association”, is influential only in North America, having almost no bearing on transgender care in other countries.)

As you know, “affirmative care” is that form of care for gender-dysphoric adolescents that guides and pressures them to become trans people, affirming (rather than exploring) their feelings that they’re in the wrong bodies. Beyond cursory “rah rah” therapy, the program then gives adolescents puberty blockers that supposedly pause their development to give them time to decide, and then urges hormonal treatment and—sometimes—top or bottom surgery.  It’s the “affirmative” part—the idea that the child’s views and desires must be catered to—that bothers many of us.  Involved in this are three issues:

1.)  Are adolescents to be trusted with making decisions about medical care that can affect their lives in a major way, decisions that involve taking hormones and having surgery that can sterilize them and (in the case of bottom surgery) lead to severe complications?  Shouldn’t there be a minimum age limit for making such decisions?  According to the NYT article below, the Biden administration had issued draft guidelines, but these were never enacted. (To my mind, these guidelines seem way too young. 17 for genital surgeries and 14 for hormone treatments?)

The draft guidelines, released in late 2021, recommended lowering the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies.

Now, it appears, many people want NO age minimums, and that includes the U.S. government.

2.)  The long-term effects of puberty blockers on adolescents are not known very well. In some European countries the use of such blockers as regular therapy is banned, and blockers are employed only in clinical trials.

3.)  The bulk of cases of gender dysphoria resolve themselves on their own, without dysphoric people needing hormones or surgery before puberty, and many on hormone therapy stop that therapy, which may not (as gender advocates say) be completely irreversible. Many of these children resolve as homosexuals, which involves neither medicine nor surgery.  As Pamela Paul of the NYT noted, with links:

Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.

Europeans are taking a more watchful approach to these questions, but somehow in the U.S. many gender activists want no minimum age limit for affirmative care (including the use of blockers when kids are quite young), only perfunctory therapy for gender-dysphoric adolescents (perhaps only a single session), and make decisive (and erroneous) pronouncements that puberty blockers are not only perfectly safe, having no long-term effects, but are also completely reversible.

This first report, from the Economist (click to read) shows that WPATH tried to impede the work of scientists and researchers working on reviews of transgender issues, reviews meant to inform WPATH’s own guidelines for transitioning. In other words, WPATH wanted researchers to come up with only those results that the organization wanted, results that buttressed affirmative therapy.

Both this article and the NYT article resulted from discovery documents and emails released in a court case challenging Alabama’s ban on transgender medical care for minors.

Here are some experts showing how WPATH resisted systematic analysis of relevant data. (WPATH adamantly denied the results of the NHS’s Cass Review in England, which put considerable brakes on affirmative care in the UK).

Court documents recently released as part of the discovery process in a case involving youth gender medicine in Alabama reveal that WPATH’s claim was built on shaky foundations. The documents show that the organisation’s leaders interfered with the production of systematic reviews that it had commissioned from the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-Based Practice Centre (EPC) in 2018.

From early on in the contract negotiations, WPATH expressed a desire to control the results of the Hopkins team’s work. In December 2017, for example, Donna Kelly, an executive director at wpath, told Karen Robinson, the EPC’s director, that the WPATH board felt the EPC researchers “cannot publish their findings independently”. A couple of weeks later, Ms Kelly emphasised that, “the [WPATH] board wants it to be clear that the data cannot be used without WPATH approval”.

There was then a negotiation stipulating that WPATH didn’t have to approve the data, but could offer review and feedback to the researchers without “meddling” in publication:

Eventually WPATH relented, and in May 2018 Ms Robinson signed a contract granting WPATH power to review and offer feedback on her team’s work, but not to meddle in any substantive way. After WPATH leaders saw two manuscripts submitted for review in July 2020, however, the parties’ disagreements flared up again. In August the WPATH executive committee wrote to Ms Robinson that WPATH had “many concerns” about these papers, and that it was implementing a new policy in which WPATH would have authority to influence the EPC team’s output—including the power to nip papers in the bud on the basis of their conclusions.

But only one review was ever published, about the effects of hormone therapy on transgender people, and, six years later, there are no more articles published, despite the fact that the EPC group has enough data for SIX more reviews.  Something fishy is going on, but what it is we don’t know. (Bolding below is mine.)

No one at WPATH or Johns Hopkins has responded to multiple inquiries, so there are still gaps in this timeline. But an email in October 2020 from WPATH figures, including its incoming president at the time, Walter Bouman, to the working group on guidelines, made clear what sort of science WPATH did (and did not) want published. Research must be “thoroughly scrutinised and reviewed to ensure that publication does not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense,” it stated. Mr Bouman and one other coauthor of that email have been named to a World Health Organisation advisory board tasked with developing best practices for transgender medicine.

Since WPATH is all out for affirmative care, and demonizes those who call for caution (e.g., the Cass Review), the bit in bold above looks like arrant interference by WPATH with the scientific process.  One could lump WPATH’s behavior in this case along with attempts by other ideologues to make reality comport with ideology—what I call the “reverse appeal to nature”, or “What we consider good and moral must be seen in nature.”

But what seems even worse, at least to American liberals, is that officials in the Biden Administration, including the trans woman who is the assistant secretary for Health and Human Services, have tried to get WPATH to drop all its guidelines for age minimums.  And the pressure worked! WPATH has no more age guidelines.

Click below to read the NYT piece, or find it archived here

Some excerpts (I’ve added a link to Levine):

Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Age minimums, officials feared, could fuel growing political opposition to such treatments. [JAC: That apparently means that age limits indicate that there are issues involved with decisions to undergo such treatments. But this is not a political issue!]

Email excerpts from members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recount how staff for Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a transgender woman, urged them to drop the proposed limits from the group’s guidelines and apparently succeeded.

Now WPATH, an organization to which many American doctors and therapists adhere, has no age guidelines at all.  If an eight-year-old girl says she feels like she’s in a boy’s body, then affirmative care could begin immediately, and hormones administered soon thereafter. And surgery at any age!

Now I’m not sure about the ethics of a trans woman in the government —or any person, be they cis or trans—pressuring a professional organization to drop age limits for “adolescent surgeries”, but it doesn’t sound kosher.  No bureaucrat should be applying any pressure. for this is an issue best left to doctors and medical ethicists. Yet the pressure from Levine and her office was constant:

The email excerpts released this week shed light on possible reasons for those guideline changes, and highlight Admiral Levine’s role as a top point person on transgender issues in the Biden administration. The excerpts are legal filings in a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care.

One excerpt from an unnamed member of the WPATH guideline development group recalled a conversation with Sarah Boateng, then serving as Admiral Levine’s chief of staff: “She is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in D.C., and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out.”

Another email stated that Admiral Levine “was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to care for trans youth and maybe adults, too. Apparently the situation in the U.S.A. is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them.”

There are a lot more emails that I haven’t read, but here’s one more bit showing that even within WPATH there was dissent about removing age limits:

In other emails released this week, some WPATH members voiced their disagreement with the proposed changes. “If our concern is with legislation (which I don’t think it should be — we should be basing this on science and expert consensus if we’re being ethical) wouldn’t including the ages be helpful?” one member wrote. “I need someone to explain to me how taking out the ages will help in the fight against the conservative anti-trans agenda.”

The international expert group ultimately removed the age minimums in its eighth edition of the standards of care, released in September 2022. The guidelines reflected the first update in a decade and were the first version of the standards to include a dedicated chapter on medical treatment of transgender adolescents.

The fact is that we know very little about the long-term effects of various medical interventions on the health and mental well-being of gender-dysphoric adolescents. And with WPATH and the government trying to impose their own dictates on what the results should be, gender care in America looks dire.  Like any other branch of medicine and therapy, it should be informed by science, not ideology, and ideologues should not be dictating how the scientific results should turn out. Yet WPATH continues to make statements without evidence, preferring anecdotes:

The final WPATH guidelines state that distress about breast development in particular has been associated in transgender teenagers with higher rates of depression, anxiety and distress.

“While the long-term effects of gender-affirming treatments initiated in adolescence are not fully known, the potential negative health consequences of delaying treatment should also be considered,” the guidelines state.

“Gender-affirming surgery is valued highly by those who need these services — lifesaving in many cases,” Dr. Bowers said.

I’m pretty sure the “lifesaving part”, as epitomized in the advice given parents of gender-dysphoric children, “Do you want a live son or a dead daughter?”  Gender dysphoria is often accompanied by depression and other mental issues, and there’s no evidence I know of that gender-dysphoria alone causes suicide in the absence of affirmative care.

UPDATE: I’d missed this article from Reality’s Last Stand, but it’s highly relevant. Click below to read it:

 

An excerpt, noting that apparently the NYT had even more damning emails but didn’t publish them (bolding below is the author’s):

Last night, I had drinks with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, determined not to talk about The Issue. But a few minutes before I arrived, I found out that The New York Times had decided not to publish a part of a story about the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—an advocacy group that creates “standards of care” for trans medicine, which American medical groups avow to adhere to (they don’t) and claim are evidence-based (they aren’t).

That part of the story would have discussed recently unsealed WPATH documents, subpoenaed by the state of Alabama, as part of a lawsuit, Boe v. Marshall. Alabama parents, medical providers, and a Birmingham pastor named Paul Eknes-Tucker sued the state because of its ban on “gender-affirming care” for minors—and the criminalization of those who practice it.

. . .The emails show that Hopkins did conduct a systematic review, and that—like all the other SRs—it found diddly squat in terms of evidence supporting the efficacy of hormones and surgeries. But WPATH prevented Johns Hopkins from publishing these reviews because they didn’t come to WPATH’s preferred conclusions. WPATH hid this very important information from the entire world, then published standards of care saying an evidence review was impossible. And a government agency knew this!

We are talking about kids and the most invasive possible interventions here. We are talking about venerable academic institutions and government agencies and censorship and secrets.

. . . Turns out, there’s a whole heckuva lot more of these damning emails. The New York Times had access to them but chose not to cover them. A source told me this is because no one from Johns Hopkins would comment on the record. The documents will be available via the LGBT Courage Coalition tomorrow (I will add a link and start a thread when it’s up), but I had a chance to preview them. If you have not yet had what GIDS whistleblower Anna Hutchinson called her “holy fuck!” moment, now’s the time.

After discussing the concessions the Johns Hopkins researchers made to WPATH, apparently deep-sixing six review papers, author Davis says this:

Can you believe the John Hopkins folks agreed to this? This is not science. WPATH is not credible. And this is why we in America are the outliers: we’re not basing guidelines on systematic reviews, or reality. We’re basing them on an activist group’s political agenda, and even the HHS knows there’s no good evidence. In fact, AHRQ was asked to review guidelines for treating gender dysphoric youth back in 2020, because, the request said:

There is a lack of current evidence-based guidance for care of children and adolescents who identify as transgender, particularly regarding the benefits and harms of pubertal suppression, medical affirmation with hormone therapy, and surgical affirmation. While these are some existing guidelines and standards of care,2, 5-6 most are derived from expert opinion or have not been updated recently so a comprehensive evidence review is currently not available.

What did AHRQ decide, after communicating with the Hopkins researchers?

The EPC Program will not develop a new systematic review because we found protocols for two systematic reviews that addresses portions of the nomination, and an insufficient number of primary studies exist to address the remainder of the nomination.

Basically, they said someone was already doing it, and there wasn’t enough evidence to sort through. But the someone already doing it had already agreed to put science aside and only discuss benefits, not harms.

In future years the suppression of scientific research on gender medicine in America will be seen as a scandal. And besides unforeseen damage to people’s lives, we can expect a spate of lawsuits.

Both WPATH and the Biden Administration bear the blame for the latest series of missteps.  In its efforts to placate the progressive Left (something I didn’t predict when Biden was elected), the Biden Administration has badly mishandled issues of sex and gender.

h/t: Rosemary

How can young galaxies in the early Universe have ancient stars? That’s the question a team of astronomers set out to answer using JWST as a probe. They first spotted the massive objects in 2022 and are still working to explain what these things are.

The infrared-sensitive recently JWST zeroed in on three of these objects. Interestingly, it found them emitting light from stars that appear to be mysteriously old. The galaxies themselves were seen as they appeared about 700 million years after the Big Bang. They look nothing like the spirals and ellipticals we see in the more “modern” universe.

“We have confirmed that these appear to be packed with ancient stars — hundreds of millions of years old — in a universe that is only 600-800 million years old. Remarkably, these objects hold the record for the earliest signatures of old starlight,” said Bingjie Wang, a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State University and lead author on a paper describing the find. “It was totally unexpected to find old stars in a very young Universe. The standard models of cosmology and galaxy formation have been incredibly successful, yet, these luminous objects do not quite fit comfortably into those theories.”

In addition to ancient stars, the data from JWST also reveal the existence of unexpectedly large supermassive black holes in the galaxies. “It’s very confusing,” said Joel Leja, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State. “You can make this uncomfortably fit in our current model of the Universe, but only if we evoke some exotic, insanely rapid formation at the beginning of time. This is, without a doubt, the most peculiar and interesting set of objects I’ve seen in my career.”

What Gives with Such Galaxies and Ancient Stars?

Since JWST can easily see back to extremely early epochs of cosmic time, these results reveal what the earliest objects were like. It doesn’t yet explain how such old stars exist so soon after the birth of the Universe. If they truly are several hundred million years old, then they started forming extremely early in cosmic time. It’s possible they were born much sooner than astronomers think. Their formation, for now, is hidden from our view. So, it’s tough to know exactly when the process of star birth first began.

An artist’s representation of what the first stars to light up the universe might have looked like in the Cosmic Dawn when early stars and galaxies were coming together. Image Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

That’s one challenge JWST’s infrared abilities should help explain, particularly as astronomers use it to probe deeper into the earliest cosmic epochs. It shows objects emitting non-infrared light (UV) stretched by the expansion of the Universe into the infrared. This so-called “ancient” light streams from numerous objects, including stars, galaxies, and the active hearts of galaxies. As Wang notes, it’s not clear what bits of the emitted light comes from different objects. It could be coming from early galaxies appearing unexpectedly old and more massive than our Milky Way Galaxy. If so, then they formed much earlier than astronomers suspect. It’s also possible that the light comes from more normal-mass galaxies with “overmassive” black holes. Those supermassive monsters could be about a hundred to a thousand times more massive than such a galaxy would have in the “recent” Universe.

“Distinguishing between light from material falling into a black hole and light emitted from stars in these tiny, distant objects is challenging,” Wang said. “That inability to tell the difference in the current dataset leaves ample room for interpretation of these intriguing objects. Honestly, it’s thrilling to have so much of this mystery left to figure out.”

More on those Unexpectedly Big and Early Supermassive Black Holes

If the light the JWST detects does come from regions around supermassive black holes, then you have to think about why they’re so bright so early in history. Since these are luminous in infrared, it means the original emissions were in UV light. And, the brightness means there’s a lot of activity going on to emit the light. That implies much more mass in the central SMBH than expected. And, according to co-author Joel Leja, it’s confusing because these objects don’t seem to fit existing models of the early Universe.

The epoch of reionization was when light from the first stars could travel through the early Universe. At this time, galaxies began assembling, as did black holes. Why did some early galaxies have ancient stars? That’s a question JWST will help answer. Credit: Paul Geil & Simon Mutch/The University of Melbourne

“Normally supermassive black holes are paired with galaxies,” he said. “They grow up together and go through all their major life experiences together. But here, we have a fully formed adult black hole living inside of what should be a baby galaxy. That doesn’t really make sense, because these things should grow together, or at least that’s what we thought.”

Need More Data about Ancient Stars and Baby Galaxies

By baby galaxies, Leja explained, these systems are only a few hundred light-years across. By contrast, our Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across (give or take). However, those tiny galaxies contain about the same number of stars as the Milky Way—between 10 billion and a trillion stars. “These early galaxies would be so dense with stars—stars that must have formed in a way we’ve never seen, under conditions we would never expect during a period in which we’d never expect to see them,” he said. “And for whatever reason, the Universe stopped making objects like these after just a couple of billion years. They are unique to the early Universe.”

Clearly, JWST will need to do some more looking to help explain these anomalous objects in the infant Universe. In particular, astronomers will want to know more about how ancient stars appeared so early in history. Future observations should provide a deeper, longer spectral look at all these objects. That will allow astronomers to differentiate the light from stars and the light from the regions around supermassive black holes. Each of these objects has its own specific light “fingerprint” that tells astronomers what it is. The answers they get will help them understand not only the evolution of early stars and their galaxies but also the continuing questions surrounding the origins and growth of supermassive black holes so early in cosmic time.

For More Information

Tiny Bright Objects Discovered at Dawn of Universe Baffle Scientists
RUBIES: Evolved Stellar Populations with Extended Formation Histories at z ~ 7–8 in Candidate Massive Galaxies Identified with JWST/NIRSpec

The post Galaxies Filled With Old Stars Seen Shortly After the Big Bang appeared first on Universe Today.

John Avise is here for his Sunday installment of bird photos. John’s notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

Eastern Mexico Birds 

The very first scientific paper I ever published (essentially my Masters Thesis from the University of Texas in 1972) dealt with the genetics of blind Mexican cavefish in the genus Astyanax.  Nearly 40 years later, the evolution of these eyeless and unpigmented fish from their fully-eyed surface ancestors had become a hot topic in evolutionary genetics, with literally dozens of researchers now involved.  In 2011, I was invited to give an introductory lecture at a special Astyanax conference held near Tampico and Veracruz, Mexico.   This week’s post shows several of the bird species that I managed to photograph on the venue’s grounds during this three-day-long event.

Altamira Oriole (Icterus gularis):

American Kestrel (Falco sparverius):

Black-bellied Whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis):

Brown Jay (Psilorhinus morio):

Clay-colored Robin (Turdus grayi):

Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus):

Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons):

Gray Hawk (Buteo nitidus):

Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus):

Hooded Oriole (Ictalurus cucullatus):

Louisiana Waterthrush (Seiurus moticilla):

Melodious Blackbird (Dives dives):

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottus):

Social Flycatcher (Myiozetetes similis):

Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa):

Morelet’s Seedeater (Sporophila torqueola):

White-eyed Vireo (Vireo griseus):

NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation programme (SCaN) has demonstrated the first two way end-to-end laser relay system, deployed through an innovative network. To test SCaN, they sent data to the International Space Station at the impressive speed of 1.2 gigabits per second. Using bandwidth that would normally be reserved for more important communications, the chosen message for the test was a set of adorable images and videos featuring the pets of NASA astronauts and staffers.

A group of astronauts and employees from NASA, including Randy Bresnik, Cristina Kock and Kjell Lindgren chose NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system test to send photos of their cherished pets to the International Space Station. As full colour images and videos, they are more complex, containing many more pixels than text or technical diagram transmissions. This made it the perfect dataset to demonstrate the speed and agility of the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) system.

The demonstration also tested a new networking technique. Space data transmission faces significant delays and potential data loss due to the vast distances involved. To address this, NASA developed Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), which uses a “store-and-forward” process to handle data disruptions. An advanced implementation of DTN called High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN), developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center, further enhances this by enabling data transfer up to four times faster than current DTN technology. HDTN aggregates data from various sources and prepares it for transmission back to Earth, demonstrating its capabilities during the pet photo and video experiment.

The data began its journey at a mission operations center in Las Cruces, New Mexico, before being routed to optical ground stations in California and Hawaii. From there, the data was modulated onto infrared laser signals and sent to NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) satellite in geosynchronous orbit, which then relayed the data to the ILLUMA-T on the space station.

NASA’s ILLUMA-T payload communicating with LCRD over laser signals. Credit: NASA/Dave Ryan

Historically, NASA has relied on radio frequency communications for data transfer to and from on-board computers beyond our atmosphere. With the breakthrough of laser communications (better known as optical communications,) more complex messages and data packets can be transferred much more quickly. This is possible because although both radio waves and infrared light travel at the speed of light, infrared moves in a tighter wavelength. This allows the signal to be modulated much more rapidly, which means that more information can be sent in the same amount of time.

Laser communication also promises to improve the working and living environment in orbit. The ILLUMA-T laser communication terminal is smaller, lighter and requires less power than existing systems. With more space, and a reduced drain on power, the system will improve communication with earth and make life a little easier for astronauts on the space station.

The SCaN test highlighted the speed and efficacy of how powerful the laser communications system can be and also emphasised the value of multi-program demonstrations. According to deputy associate administrator and SCaN program manager at NASA, Kevin Coggins, the campaign has been successful for both the ILLUM-TLCRD and HDTN. “Not only have they demonstrated how these technologies can play an essential role in enabling NASA’s future science and exploration missions, it also provided a fun opportunity for the teams to “picture” their pets assisting with this innovative demonstration.”

A collage of the pet photos sent over laser links from Earth to LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration) to ILLUMA-T (Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) on the space station. NASA/Molly Kearns

Using pet footage as the test was inspired by the December 2023 NASA laser communication test that streamed a video of a ginger tabby called “Taters”, chasing the dot from a laser pointer. It was sent from the Psyche spacecraft almost 30 million kilometers away to the Hale Telescope at the Palomar observatory in California. The 15 second HD video took just 101 minutes to reach its destination and represents one of the first successful high-bandwidth laser communications transmission tests into deep space. As the deputy administrator at NASA said at the time, “Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.” Although Taters does not hold the distinction of being the first cat in space (that was Félicette in 1963) he can proudly call himself the subject of the first cat video in space.

This optimized DTN technology aims to enhance NASA’s communications services, including improved security, network routing of high-definition multimedia, and more. As NASA’s Artemis program advances toward establishing a sustainable lunar presence, SCaN continues to develop innovative communications technology to bring the reliability and performance of Earth’s internet to space.

ILLUMA-T, LCRD, and HDTN are funded by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters. LCRD and ILLUMA-T are managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, while HDTN is managed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center. The space station network is managed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/nasas-laser-relay-system-sends-pet-imagery-to-from-space-station/

The post The Space Station Now Has Blisteringly Fast Internet appeared first on Universe Today.

The Gemini Observatory has unveiled a striking new image that shows star formation within the irregular galaxy NGC 4449. This galaxy is categorised as a “Magellanic-type” galaxy due to its similarities  with the Magellanic Clouds, although it is smaller in size. Surrounding NGC 4449 is a halo of smaller dwarf galaxies, two of which are currently merging with it. This merger is causing clouds of gas to collide, fuelling the surge in star formation observed in NGC 4449.

All stars, even the Sun, are born from vast clouds of gas and dust, and when they die, their remnants are recycled back into the galaxy, providing fuel for new stars. When the Universe began there was only hydrogen and a tiny amount of helium present but the fusion process inside stars creates new, heavier elements. This includes every atom inside you and me, the planets and even the computer screen you are reading this on. In a relatively nearby part of the Universe, 13 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici, this cycle is beginning again at an extraordinary pace.

NGC 4449 (the four thousandth, four hundredth and forty ninth object in the New General Catalogue) is a fascinating galaxy and is well known for its high levels of star formation. It’s a member of the M94 group of galaxies and is surrounded by a halo of dwarf galaxies, two of which are currently merging with it. The Gemini Observatory has recently captured incredible images of NGC 4449, showcasing the processes and birth processes occurring within.

The stellar stream in the halo of the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4449 is resolved into its individual starry constituents in this exquisite image taken with the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope and Suprime-Cam. Image credit: R. Jay GaBany and Aaron J. Romanowsky (UCSC) in collaboration with David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA) and NAOJ. Image processed by R. Jay GaBany

The new image was captured with the 8.1 metre Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea as part of its 25th year anniversary. The galaxy’s swirling red clouds and blue haze are prominent and the result of light from new stars. It has been classified as an irregular Magellanic-type galaxy as it has a loose spiral structure, similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud in southern hemisphere skies.

The Gemini North telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea (Gemini Observatory/AURA)

Deep within NGC4449, stars have been forming for billions of years. It’s producing stars now at a significantly accelerated rate leading to its re-classification as a starburst galaxy. Unlike others though, starbursts are usually restricted to central regions but NGC4449’s is much more widespread. The majority of hot young stars now found in the galaxy’s nucleus and surrounding regions. 

Such levels of star formation are reminiscent of the star formation in galaxies in the early Universe. The driving force here was galaxy mergers and accretions. It is thought the burst of activity in NGC4449 is the result of a galactic merger or interaction with a neighbour. 

One of them displays a faint stream of stars extending to the side of NGC4449 showing it is currently in the process of merging. The string (and satellite galaxy) are barely visible visually due to their low visual brightness but can be detected due to their interaction with NGC449. Another object that suggests previous interactions is a huge globular cluster. It seems to be embedded within the outer halo of NGC4449 and is now believed to be a nucleus from a previous satellite galaxy that has merged with its companion. 

These two interactions and others that have likely remained undetected to date create tidal interactions within the galaxy send shockwaves through the galaxy compressing the interstellar gas. The red that can be seen in the image reveals regions with high levels of ionised hydrogen and star formation. Significant quantities of hot young blue stars can be seen as they emerge from the star forming regions. It is thought, that the rate of star formation in NGC4449 is likely only to last for another billion years or so until the gas has been used up and the shockwaves subside. 

Source : Gemini North Captures Starburst Galaxy Blazing Bright With Newly Forming Stars

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When astronauts land on Mars someday, they might have to live in lava caves or lava tubes to survive the harsh radiation that rains down on the Martian surface every second. But which caves could offer them the best chance of survival? This is what a recent study presented at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as Dr. Anatoliy P. Vidmachenko from the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine investigated where, how, and why lava tubes and lava caves could aid future Mars astronauts regarding their survival. This study holds the potential to help scientists and engineers help mitigate risks for future Mars astronauts and what steps that need to be taken to make that a reality.

For the study, Dr. Vidmachenko examined several locations across Mars that have been found to possess lava caves and lava tubes suitable for future first-time settlements, including Arsia Mons, which is one of three extinct volcanoes that comprise Tharsis Montes. It is here that a 2007 study presented at the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference discussed seven alleged skylights observed from orbital images that were later interpreted to be entrances to lava caves. This recent study mentions that the diameters of these lava caves could be between 100-250 meters (328-820 feet) wide.

“Such reliable caves can be used to create the first permanent settlements,” the study notes. “They will allow you to reliably protect yourself from powerful radiation exposure. And a certain drawback will be the need to organize the delivery of water ice to provide the settlers with water resources and raw materials for extracting the much-needed oxygen and hydrogen fuel for rocket engines.”

The study mentions several other locations across Mars where pits or skylights have been observed, including Hebrus Valles, the Pavonis volcano, Ascraeus Mons, Acidalia Planitia (whose surface location was featured The Martian), and Cydonia Mensae. Additionally, the study discusses how lava channels, caves, or tubes close to sources of water ice would also prove beneficial for future astronauts, which could significantly reduce the costs of shipping and storing water on their spacecraft for the initial journey to Mars.

“The best case would be a lava tube with strong walls found next to powerful glacial structures,” the study notes. “The colony itself, most likely, will have the appearance of separate premises, with residential, engineering, elevator and greenhouse compartments. They will have to be connected to each other by small transition tunnels to control the pressure and composition of the artificially created atmosphere in them.”

Lava tubes were featured prominently in the National Geographic television series, Mars, which depicted the first astronauts to the Red Planet and their quest to survive the harsh environment. During their journey, lava tubes provided shelter from the cosmic and solar radiation while also having large deposits of water ice at their disposal which they used for drinking and rocket fuel while drastically reducing the amount of water they initially had to bring during their journey.

The reason why cosmic and solar radiation rains down on to the Martian surface daily is due to the lack of protective ozone layer and magnetic field that exists on Earth and helps deflect this deadly radiation from reaching our surface, enabling life to exist here for billions of years. While Mars might have had both mechanisms billions of years ago, the interior of the Red Planet has since cooled drastically, causing these protective features to be stripped away by the solar wind and lost to space.

This study comes as NASA plans to send humans back to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, and eventually Mars, as part of the agency’s Moon to Mars Architecture. Therefore, adequate preparation prior to sending the first astronauts to the Red Planet would prove beneficial in increasing their chances of survival throughout the entire journey, and this study highlighted several ways lava tubes could do just that.

How will lava caves help future Mars astronauts in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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To get to the Moon, NASA is building a Lunar Gateway in orbit to facilitate easier access to the Moon. With construction beginning in 2028 as part of Artemis IV there will be an ongoing programme of enhancements and additions. NASA has now released a fabulous new 3D animation of the Lunar Gateway to showcase what the final Gateway will look like. It includes modules from partner nations and an Orion lunar landers dock to carry astronauts. 

NASA’s Artemis program marks a historic return to lunar exploration following on from the Apollo era. It aims to land “the first woman and the next man” on the Moon by 2025 and heralds a new era of space exploration focused on sustainability and international collaboration. This ambitious project will use advanced technologies, including the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, to establish a long-term human presence on the surface of the Moon. The program also aims to develop the Lunar Gateway, a space station orbiting the Moon, to support missions and serve as a staging point for future expeditions to Mars. 

Stacking SLS for Artemis 1. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

The purpose of the Lunar Gateway is to facilitate the exploration of the many scientific mysteries of deep space with Gateway’s first lunar space station. Starting with the Artemis IV mission in 2028, the international teams of astronauts will live, conducting science, and preparing for various lunar missions to the South Pole.

NASA has released a fabulous computer generated video of the Gateway showing its exterior form in amazing detail. You can view the video here.

The propulsion and power systems are prominent in the video and with the solar array will make the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown. The array will power the station’s systems and even ionise the xenon gas that will produce thrust using an ion system to maintain the spacecrafts polar orbit. 

At the hub of the spacecraft though is the Habitation and Logistics Outpost otherwise known as HALO! This element controls and commands the spacecraft and provides communication links back to Earth and the lunar surface. It has been provided by the European Space Station (ESA) and will also support life support systems, exercise equipment and science payload banks. 

Another element provided by ESA with support from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the environmental control and life support systems. Without it, life on board simply would not survive. 

There are a whole host of other systems on bard from a refuelling capability to ensure the power and propulsion system is topped up, a crew and science airlock system, science payloads and much more. 

Source : Gateway: Up Close in Stunning Detail

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