Unseating Einstein, 08.24.11

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider research facility in Cern have made a discovery that, if proven true, would literally be the greatest scientific discovery of the last 100 years. The researchers are asking other facilities around the world to take their findings and test them to see if they glean the same results. The shocking discovery? They have made the unsettling observation that a certain type of particle is capable of travelling faster than the speed of light.

The particles in question are neutrinos, electrically neutral, weakly-interacting subatomic particles. They can often be found in the emissions from our own star, the sun. They tend to stream directly through things without making hardly any impact, which, with more study, could be the key to something big.

Ever since Albert Einstein published some of his physics theories in 1905 on the basis that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, physics and astronomy calculations have grown and matured around that idea. For the past three years though, Cern has conducted various experiments with over 16,000 of the neutrino particles, and the stunning part is the it was such a simple time of travel calculation. If the results from Cern are confirmed, though, everything will change. Never have scientists ever been so nervous about asking their peers to check their math.

Big deal, you say, so the things move fast. What does this mean for me? Remember that big thing we mentioned earlier that could come about because the neutrinos pass through material with little to no interaction? Scientists are actually hypothesizing that the particles are able to travel as fast as they are because they are actually travelling in between different dimensions. Yeah, we said it; different dimensions. As in, alternate realities. The kind of stuff you only wonder about and see in science fiction. If these findings are confirmed, not only will scientists finally have something to work with to get us started on a path for lightspeed space travel, but travel to alternate dimensions.

If you remember from grade school, many of the “educated” hundreds of years ago believed that everything in our solar system orbited around Earth. Then, more observations were made and the theory was put forward that maybe we weren’t the center of it all, that maybe we orbit the Sun instead. There was huge uproar, some people were ostracized from society and the scientific community, the church had a tendency to call such theories heresy…you get the picture. Eventually, though, people opened up their minds just a bit and started to look at the situation with that little “what if” bug nibbling at the back of their minds, and eventually people came around and began to see how very silly the other idea that they had followed for centuries had been. While it is not confirmed yet – and even the scientists who made the observations are skeptical about it – IF it is confirmed, this discovery would be on that same scale. It would rock the world. So, sit back and grab onto something while some serious math gets done. We’ll keep you posted for tremors.

The sky is falling! 08.15.11

*UPDATE: NASA is now saying that they expect UARS to make impact at some point late tonight or early tomorrow morning. While it is impossible to pinpoint its exact crash site now, they estimate it will be somewhere off the coast of the Philippines. For NASA’s information about the UARS mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/index.html.


The sky is falling! Well, not exactly. Something in the sky is falling, though. A 13,000-pound research satellite, to be precise. The word from NASA is to keep an eye out for falling debris.

UARS. Image credit: SPACE.com.

UARS, or the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, has said its farewells to space and will be returning to Earth. NASA is slightly nervous about the giant research satellite, though, because it will be a true free-fall back to earth. What is more: they have no idea where the pieces that survive re-entry back into earth’s atmosphere will land.


According to NASA, they estimate about 1,000 pounds of the satellite will crash back into Earth, but will probably break up in the atmosphere and descend in a rain of debris that could cover an area about 500 miles in length.


As of right now, they cannot predict where or even when the remains of the satellite should make it back to Earth, but should be able to begin calculating it’s projected landfall about four days before it lands. They estimate it should be “landing” at the end of this month, or in early October. As it becomes closer and closer to Earth, they will attempt to give proper warning about the projected landing area.


According to NASA, no injuries have ever been reported due to re-entering space program equipment, and only minor property damage has ever been reported.


Just the same, we recommend keeping your eyes and ears open just in case UARS decides to land near you.


Credit: SPACE.com.

Packing power, 09.07.11

NASA is working on a power source that could revolutionize space exploration. A nuclear reactor the size of a regular suitcase, it is strong enough to power eight average US homes, yet portable enough to travel in small, compact space craft. Designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, the generator is not actually in production yet, but given that its true value is proven, it could be venturing outside Earth’s atmosphere in a few decades or less.

A concept lunar space station. Image credit: SPACE.com.

So, what could such a generator be used for? More dependable that solar power panels, the generators would be smaller, more durable, much easier to repair, and portable. They could be used on the “dark side” of whatever planet they happened to be stationed on (yes, we are dreaming about space stations on the Moon or Mars). They would also generate far more power than a solar cell of comparable size.

Wait a minute, what about nuclear meltdown? In light of disasters light Chernobyl and the recent leaks in earthquake and tsunami-wrecked Japan, would we really want to rely on nuclear reactors? Well, it turns out the suitcase-sized reactors would be much more stable than the monster, factory-sized reactors located throughout our nation and across the world. According to James Werner, the lead researcher on the project, “There would be no danger of meltdown… Because of the low power level…if we did have a situation where the power failed, the reactor itself would just shut down.”

Of course, one also has to take into consideration what sort of waste these things would generate, how often they would have to be refueled, and more. But, in light of the massive boost in exploration power they could provide (pun intended), such details seem to be exactly that: details. For now, researches are bent on thorough testing to see if these power packs are viable options.

Credit: SPACE.com.

Diamonds in the sky, 08.29.11

Apparently stars can turn into diamonds—entire planets of diamond. One such planet has just recently been discovered.

*Not an actual photograph, sorry, just in case the orbital track didn't give it away :)
This is just an artist's concept of the system.

According to Matthew Bailes of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, in 2009 a millisecond pulsar was detected in the constellations Serpens, but its elusive orbiting neighbor had yet to be spotted until recently.

Let us back up for a moment first. We have talked about pulsars a lot in the past, but what is a millisecond pulsar? Like a regular pulsar, it rotates very quickly. Millisecond pulsars leave normal pulsars in the dust, though. This particular millisecond pulsar, designated J1719-1438, completely rotates over 10,000 times in a minute. It is only 12 miles in diameter, but it is still 1.4 times more massive than our own sun.

The entire system is so compact, that the distance for the pulsar at which the diamond planet orbits is still actually within the measure of our own sun’s diameter! The astronomers studying the system believe that the diamond planet used to be a white dwarf star, and that it went through as much fusion as it could until all that was left at its center was diamond. 

So how big is this galactic diamond? Oh, only 37,300 miles in diameter. Yeah, that is five times the size of Earth, people—a solid diamond five times the size of Earth! We can only imagine what other literal treasures the cosmos holds in store.

Credit: NASA. Image credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions.

Dwarf planets' fifth birthday, 08.25.11

Five years ago yesterday, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to its “dwarf planet” classification. Here at the Wetherbee Planetarium, that is the single most-heard question we are asked: why? Was something discovered about Pluto that made astronomers second-guess it? Did something happen to it? Not at all. It is the other things around Pluto that made the IAU change their minds about what they classify as a planet, though.

As of August 24, 2006, the definition of a planet by the IAU is: “A body that circles the sun without being some other object’s satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has “cleared its neighborhood” of most other orbiting bodies.” On the first point, Pluto does orbit the sun. On the second point, as far as we can tell it is relatively round in shape. When NASA’s New Horizons probe cruises by in 2015 we will have close up images of the cold planet for the first time in history and we will know for sure what it is like. On the last point, however, Pluto is not exactly a space hog. It rubs elbows –figuratively speaking—with several other objects in our solar system in a region designated as the Kuiper (pronounced ky-per) Belt, some of which are about the same size as Pluto. 

Pluto is only about 1,455 miles in diameter and only 0.2% as massive as Earth. It is tiny, that much is certain. But, it does have at least four known moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, and the recently discovered P4 (a dismally boring name, we know—NASA presumes will probably be renamed Cerberus in the near future). In orbit around the sun with Pluto are several other objects about the same size as or smaller. Eris is one such object, and was the turning point discovery that led the IAU to re-think their definition of a planet. Another is Haumea, the rapidly spinning dwarf planet that astronomers guess may have radioactive elements in its core. Another is Makemake (pronounced mah-kay mah-kay), a dwarf planet about ¾ the size of Pluto.

Dwarf planets are not just limited to the Kuiper Belt, though. Ceres, another such object, is actually orbiting in our asteroid belt, between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

Each of these objects misses the criteria for a planet in some way, usually in clearing its neighborhood of other objects. They are massive enough to form into relatively spherical shapes and they do orbit the sun, they just usually are not really big enough to push their way through the crowd and clear their own path.

Credit: NASA.

De blob, it glows! 08.19.11

Lyman-alpha blob 1 (LAB-1) is a blob. Not only that, but it is a giant, intergalactic green blob—a giant, intergalactic, green blob that can only be studied with extremely large telescopes, like the (aptly named) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the mountains of Chile. This is what LAB-1 looks like through the VLT:

Very green, isn’t it? Believe it or not, but it is actually glowing green. That is no filter, no infrared exposure, no x-ray…nothing special done to the photograph. The thing is a glowing, green blob. That is only part of what makes it so fascinating, though.

According to the astronomers who have been studying it with the VLT, the LAB-1 is polarized in a very odd way. That polarization indicates something about what is inside of the blob: “We have shown for the first time that the glow of this enigmatic object is scattered light from brilliant galaxies hidden within, rather than the gas throughout the cloud itself shining,” said lead author Matthew Hayes at the University of Toulouse.

So, LAB-1 is full of galaxies. In case you don’t realize just how huge this blob is, astronomers calculate it is at least 300,000 light years across. That is more than 11 times the distance of our solar system from the center of just our own Milky Way galaxy. This blob is a monster… a creepy, glowing, green monster.

Astronomers are also very interested in LAB-1 because it may literally shed some light on how galaxies are formed. “For a long time now, astronomers have watched stars being born in places like the Great Orion Nebula. Now, it looks like we’ll be able to see where galaxies are born, an exciting prospect,” says Jim Friese of Thronateeska Heritage Center.

 Credit and image credit: NASA.

Liquid water on Mars? 08.08.11

New observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have produced promising evidence that during certain seasons, Mars may actually have liquid water flowing across its surface.

NASA is all a-twitter due to some new images gathered that show “dark, finger-like features” that “appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring.” That the features recur every cycle-through of the seasons indicate that they are not merely anomalies, but rather something like the swelling of streamlets and rivers here on Earth from thawed snow and ice.

Any liquid water to be found on Mars would most likely be very salty or “briny,” though, according to NASA. Based on what is known at this point of the surface chemistry of Mars, any water to be found on the surface would have a sodium concentration comparable to our own oceans. This lowers the freezing point of the water, making it possible for it to exist in a liquid form in Mars’ sometimes lower surface temperatures.

There are also markings in the soil and rock that are indicative of flowing water.

NASA astronomers are not 100% certain about the find as of this point, however. Spectroscopy scans made by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) do not reveal any liquid water.  According to Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, “the flows are not dark because of being wet…they are dark for some other reason.” The flows he was referring to were the lines in the soil and rock, and the dark lines seen by the Reconnaissance Orbiter. If the ground is completely dry and does not have little streams of brine in it, then it becomes a new mystery that it would lighten just in those areas during the winter.

According to NASA, this is the closest they have ever come to finding liquid water on Mars, and makes it an even more ideal place to visit by astronauts for study.


Credit: NASA.