Our Planet

Casting a $20 Million Mirror for the World’s Largest Telescope (Giant Magellan Telescope)

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 20, 2018
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The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is a ground-based extremely large telescope under construction, planned for completion in 2025. When completed, it will be the world’s largest telescope and one member of the next class of giant ground-based telescopes that promises to revolutionize our view and understanding of the universe. It will be constructed in the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

GMT has a unique design that offers several advantages. It is a segmented mirror telescope that employs seven of today’s largest stiff monolith mirrors as segments. Six off-axis 8.4 meter or 27-foot segments surround a central on-axis segment, forming a single optical surface 24.5 meters, or 80 feet, in diameter with a total collecting area of 368 square meters. The GMT will have a resolving power 10 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope!

Places

The Call of Science (360° NASA Video)

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 20, 2018
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Screenshot from the NASA video titled "The Call of Science"

NASA has recently published a 360-degree interactive video titled “The call of science”. You can join NASA Earth scientists as they head into the field to study ice in Greenland and coral reefs in Hawaii.

Animals Life on Earth

Want to Speak Elephant Language? [Now You Can!]

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 19, 2018
No Comments on Want to Speak Elephant Language? [Now You Can!]

Elephants in Okavango Delta, Botswana — Elephants in the Okavango Delta. The area is one of the best places to see animals and birds in Africa. The area supports large concentrations of animals on both a permanent and seasonal basis. A myriad of species are found within the delta including African Bush Elephant, African Buffalo, Hippopotamus, Lechwe, Topi, Blue Wildebeest, Giraffe, Nile crocodile, Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Brown Hyena, Spotted Hyena, Greater Kudu, Sable Antelope, Black Rhinoceros, White Rhinoceros, Plains Zebra, Warthog and Chacma Baboon. Notably the endangered African Wild Dog still survives within the Okavango Delta and exhibits one of the richest pack densities in Africa. In addition to these large animals the Okavango Delta also supports over 400 species of birds and 71 recorded species of fish including Tigerfish, Tilapia and Catfish. Thanks to this wide variety of wildlife, the delta is now a popular tourist attraction.

Ever wanted to speak “Elephant”, or to understand these amazing, beautiful animals? Thanks to a new web-based translator developed by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and ElephantVoices, now you can! “Hello in elephant” website translates human words and emotions into the “elephant language”, or elephant calls that signal similar emotions or intentions.

Solar System Astronomy

Farout: the most-distant body ever observed in Solar System

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 18, 2018
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The distance of Farout from the Sun — Solar system distances to scale showing the newly discovered 2018 VG18, nicknamed "Farout," compared to other known solar system objects. Farout is currently about 11,160 million miles (around 18 billion kilometers) from the Sun. That's around 120 AU, which is 120 times the distance between the Sun and Earth. This makes it the first Solar System object observed beyond 100 AU. Credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa and Scott S. Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science. Image Source: Carnegie Science

Researchers discovered the farthest known object in our solar system and named it “Farout” (far-out-there). It is about 120 times farther than Earth is from the Sun (120 AU, see notes 1). For comparison, the most distant planet, Neptune is about 30 AU from the Sun. At its most distant, once upon a time the ninth planet, now a dwarf planet, Pluto, can be 49 AU (7.29 billion km, or 4.53 billion miles) from the Sun. Currently, Pluto is at about 34 AU, making Farout more than three-and-a-half times more distant than the Solar System‘s most-famous dwarf planet.

Environment People

How Cities Will Evolve to Become More Sustainable

Post author By Josy O'Donnel
Post date December 17, 2018
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Central Park — Increasing environmental sustainability has become an important topic both on the minds of many individuals and in the media. This is for good reason - recently, studies have starkly illuminated the impact of climate change and the role humans play in increasing global temperatures. With sobering consequences such as drought and more severe weather patterns, an increased number of people have started to consider how they can become more sustainable. In this global shift, many cities are moving to become more sustainable and decrease negative impacts on the environment. Although the level of involvement varies by city and country, an evolution is occurring as cities implement improved infrastructure and policies to become more sustainable.

Increasing environmental sustainability has become an important topic both on the minds of many individuals and in the media. This is for good reason – recently, studies have starkly illuminated the impact of climate change and the role humans play in increasing global temperatures. With sobering consequences such as drought and more severe weather patterns, an increased number of people have started to consider how they can become more sustainable. In this global shift, many cities are moving to become more sustainable and decrease negative impacts on the environment. Although the level of involvement varies by city and country, evolution is occurring as cities implement improved infrastructure and policies to become more sustainable.

Solar System Astronomy

Yet Another Scale Model of the Solar System [Video]

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 17, 2018
No Comments on Yet Another Scale Model of the Solar System [Video]

A scale view of the Sun and the planets — In his YouTube channel, The Science Asylum, physicist Nick Lucid provides yet another scale model of the solar system. A very nice video conceptualizing how mind-bogglingly big our solar system (and space) is. Image: from the video titled "The Craziest Solar System Model EVER!" on Science Asylum channel on YouTube.

Previously I posted articles titled “If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A Tediously Accurate Map Of The Solar System” and “A Scale Model Of Solar System Drawn In The Desert And The Result Is Stunning”. Since the human brain cannot deal with really large numbers, these articles provide amazing ways to understand how big actually our Solar System is.

Now, in his YouTube channel, The Science Asylum, physicist Nick Lucid provides yet another scale model of the solar system. A very nice video conceptualizing how mind-bogglingly big our solar system (and space) is.

Animals Life on Earth Oceans

Orcas swimming around a woman (video)

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 16, 2018
No Comments on Orcas swimming around a woman (video)

Three orcas swimming with a woman (New Zealand) — A woman was swimming on 4 December 2018 at Hahei Beach on the Coromandel peninsular, New Zealand. Then a pod of orcas (killer whales) swam up to her (probably a mother and two calves), and circled her. They kept swimming around her while she was headed to the shore. Especially the mother swam really close to her. A man named Dylan Brayshaw captured the full scene from a drone. The result was an amazing drone footage.

A woman was swimming on 4 December 2018 at Hahei Beach on the Coromandel peninsular, New Zealand. Then a pod of orcas (killer whales) swam up to her (probably a mother and two calves), and circled her. They kept swimming around her while she was headed to the shore. Especially the mother swam really close to her. A man named Dylan Brayshaw captured the full scene from a drone. The result is the amazing drone footage below.

Earth from Space Space Exploration

Amazing time-lapse of the Russian spacewalk over the Atlantic Ocean (video)

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 15, 2018
No Comments on Amazing time-lapse of the Russian spacewalk over the Atlantic Ocean (video)

Russian spacewalk (December 11, 2018) — On December 11, 2018, the cosmonauts went outside to install a plug and thermal insulation on the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft which was damaged by a powertool causing an air leak. The EVA examined a section of the external hull of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, took samples of residue found on the hull, along with digital images of the area before the plan called for the placing a new thermal blanket over it. The spacewalkers literally cut into the Soyuz’s black thermal blankets and pulled away the insulation to expose the area around the hole. The samples and images will provide additional information that will aid the investigation into the cause of the pressure leak, according to NASA.

The European Space Agency has published an amazing sped-up time-lapse video of the Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev during their spacewalk as they floated over the Atlantic Ocean. The video was taken from the European Columbus laboratory.

The two cosmonauts look like working honeybees in the upper-right corner in this sped-up video.

Space Exploration

What Happens to the “Space Junk” that Falls back to Earth?

Post author By Josy O'Donnel
Post date December 10, 2018
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Kessler Syndrome: Explosions of satellites and rocket bodies — In 1978, Donald J. Kessler proposed a scenario: since the spent rockets, satellites and other space trash have accumulated in orbit increasing the likelihood of collision with other debris, these collisions create more debris creating a runaway chain reaction of collisions and even more debris. This scenario is now known as known as the Kessler Syndrome. This domino effect and feedback runaway can create a physically impassable barrier in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to space exploration that occurs in higher orbits. Donald J. Kessler, then an astrophysicist working at NASA, demonstrated that once the amount of debris in a particular orbit reaches critical mass, collision cascading begins even if no more objects are launched into the orbit. Once collisional cascading begins, the risk to satellites and spacecraft increases until the orbit is no longer usable. Kessler proposed it would take 30 to 40 years for such a threshold to be reached. Today, interestingly exactly 40 years later Kessler demonstrated his theory, some experts think we are already at critical mass in low-Earth orbit (LEO). So far, about 200 explosions and at least 5 collisions in space have occurred. Further explosions and collisions are very likely. The explosions are mainly caused by onboard energy sources, either due to pressure build-up in propellant tanks, battery explosions, or the ignition of hypergolic fuels. Each explosion creates thousands of small debris objects. Image Credit: ESA

In 1908, a flaming meteor fell through the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded above the Stony Tunguska River in the Siberian forest. The result was shocking: 80 million trees over 820 square miles were blown over like toothpicks and mankind began to fear destruction from outer space. A century later, it seems this fear should be focused not on natural objects from the heavens. Rather, a greater danger to man is the human-made debris orbiting the earth. This “space junk” threatens the Earth’s environment in several ways.

Astrobiology Evolution

Proof of life: how would we recognize an alien if we saw one?

Post author By Aeon Magazine
Post date December 8, 2018
1 Comment on Proof of life: how would we recognize an alien if we saw one?

An octomite — An 'octomite', or a speculative alien produced by natural selection. Courtesy Helen Cooper/Cambridge University The researchers imagine a complex alien called the ‘Octomite’ which is comprised of a hierarchy of entities, where each lower level collection of entities has aligned evolutionary interests such that conflict is effectively eliminated. These entities engage in division of labour, with various parts specialising on various tasks, such that the parts are mutually dependent.

What would convince you that aliens existed? The question came up recently at a conference on astrobiology, held at Stanford University in California. Several ideas were tossed around – unusual gases in a planet’s atmosphere, strange heat gradients on its surface. But none felt persuasive. Finally, one scientist offered the solution: a photograph. There was some laughter and a murmur of approval from the audience of researchers: yes, a photo of an alien would be convincing evidence, the holy grail of proof that we’re not alone.