Tag: nasa

Up or Down – Cats in Space

By Anupum Pant

Cat’s righting reflex

Cat_fall_150x300_6fpsThanks to the Vestibular righting reflex, animals like cats are able to land on their feet after a fall. This is great because it helps them avoid injury. In fact, it helps them avoid injuries in a very counter-intuitive manner.

In a study done in the year 1987, researchers found that cats falling from 6 storeys or less usually have greater injuries than cats falling from places higher than 6 storeys. There have been cats who have survived a fall from as high as 32 storeys. It’s so absurd, I had to mention that.

Also cats have been often found falling from high rise buildings due to a phenomenon known as the high-rise syndrome. This happens because cats mostly have a natural attraction towards high places, often get distracted by a prey and fall.

Cats In Space?

All said, there’s no doubt that cats can right themselves pretty well. But to do it, they need to have a sense of what is up and what is down. That sense, of course comes from gravity. What happens to them in micro gravity? A little kid asked me that and I had no answer. Who would have tested that, I thought.

So I checked. To my surprise, cats-in-zero-gravity-tests (simulated weightlessness) have actually been done previously by the USAF medical division and Russian cosmonaut training centre. Here’s an interesting old video of how cat’s natural reflex to right itself by spinning longitudinally fails in a simulated zero-G environment. The video also has confused pigeons flying upside down in zero-G. The whole film can be seen here.

Through experimentation it has been found that when it comes to animals in space, there are three different kinds of behaviours seen among various animals.

The first ones are the kind of animals who freeze in zero-G and wait for the weightlessness to go away. There are others, like cats and pigeons, who start moving about madly, trying to figure out which side is up. In fact, pigeons in zero-G have been seen flying upside down too. And the third ones are who stay calm and find the best way to move around.

Geckos have been seen to take on a free-falling stance in zero-G. Fish and fruit flies are some of the creatures who can deal with zero-G very well.

And if you wish to see some long slender legs before you go, here is a video of frogs in space. The video also talks about aliens entering the earth – tadpoles born outside the earth were brought back. Technically they were aliens and they entered earth!

$20 Parking Ticket to NASA for Parking on an Asteroid

By Anupum Pant

Michael Stevens from Vsauce never ceases to amaze me with his facts. Recently, while watching a video on the channel, I noted this interesting story.

About 11 months before NASA’s ‘NEAR Shoemaker’ spacecraft landed on the asteroid 433, Eros, Gregory W. Nemitz claimed its ownership. He somehow got it registered and waited for the NASA’s probe to land on the near earth asteroid.

The asteroid was estimated to hold several million billion dollars of platinum. When NASA landed their spacecraft on Eros, Nemitz prepared an invoice of $20 and sent it to NASA. According to him, the parking rates on his extra-terrestrial land were $ 0.20 per year and he had decided to charge them to cover the next $ 100 years of parking.

NASA of course refused to pay and sent him a letter denying the payment. In the year 2003, Nemitz filed a case against NASA, saying that they had defaulted his payment.

The judgement was of course against Nemitz as he wasn’t able to prove the actual ownership. There’s no way he could have. Michael explains why…

[more]

Daft Punk – Contact – The Radio Broadcast Mystery

By Anupum Pant

Background

Since the day Daft Punk’s album RAM (Random Access Memories) came out last year, I’ve been listening to it at least one time every day. I don’t have a time-table sort of thing that makes me listen to it. But, since the tracks are played on shuffle, nearly all of the tracks from RAM are played at least once by my Media Player.

Every one of those tracks is wonderful. The best part, I think is their retro-styled fluid basslines (that phrase is what comes to my mind). We hardly come across such basslines in Dance music these days. But I’m not a music critique and let me stop messing around with random words to describe its bassline. I’m here to talk particularly about a track from that album that is about space – Track 13 Contact. I’m here to talk science.

The Track

The song starts with a broadcast. Pretty soon, with the eerie bassline (again) playing in the background, you are convinced that the radio broadcast is related to space – the broadcast sounds as if taken from a real archived tape. The combined effect of both the broadcast and the music playing creates a very mysterious setting. This is what the person talks in the track –

Hey Bob I’m looking at what Jack was talking about and it’s definitely not a particle that’s nearby. It is a bright object and it’s obviously rotating because it’s flashing, it’s way out in the distance, certainly rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost on time. As we look back at the earth it’s up at about 11 o’clock, about maybe ten or twelve diame…Earth diameters. I don’t know whether that does you any good, but there’s something out there.

The guy talking in it describes a “bright flashing object” which he sees in space and ends with a sentence that makes Goosebumps appear on your skin. A heavier bassline ensues. And the following thoughts start rushing into your mind.

Was that an alien ship the man saw in space? Is this some sort of a classified broadcast that got leaked and Daft Punk found it? With all sorts of government and UFO stories floating out there, it seems pretty plausible.

That is what I thought. So I decided to find out.

What is it really?

The astronaut that speaks in the broadcast is the commander of Apollo 17, Gene Cernan.  Disappointingly, it is not an alien ship being described here. Moreover, it isn’t even a leaked tape or something like that. NASA gave this recording to Daft Punk for using it in a track.

The object Gene Cernan describes on the radio was a discarded upper stage of the Saturn V rocket. As a rocket lifts up, discarded parts are normal things. This one, as things in space would, was spinning rhythmically and was reflecting sunlight at regular intervals. That explains, “Because the flashes come around almost on time”.

Yes, that’s all. Indeed, the track makes it sound very interesting. Probably that ability, to make seemingly mundane things sound appealing, is what makes Daft Punk so popular.

[Source]

I see people coming here, reading and leaving. If there is someone reading this, I’d want to hear from you something (see below). Please, give me a comment below. If you’d like to be anonymous, be that. But just one comment. Yes, it matters a lot to me. Answer this:

What kind of other articles would you like to read on AweSci? 
How would it be, if I also started sharing with you, the things I learned from a particular book? 

World’s Most Powerful Sound Systems Can Kill You

By Anupum Pant

In the past we’ve seen sound systems that used plasma instead of magnets to produce sound. Well, those plasma sound systems were pretty well equipped to kill you, but they would do it in a different manner – by electrocuting you. This one we are talking about today, literally kills you with sound.

LEAF

European Space Agency uses an extra-large speaker that throws extra-big sound at test objects. It is known to recreate the sound that a launcher produces while taking off and travelling through atmosphere. This speaker, known as, the Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) in Netherlands, is used by the European Space Agency to test satellite parts.

The Glory: They say that if any person listens to sound playing on this speaker, he/she won’t survive. This is the reason, the most powerful sound system in Europe, is enclosed in a facility that has walls that 17 meters in height, are half a meter thick and are overlaid with a resin on the inner walls that reflects sound & does not let it escape. Also, it has a safety mechanism that doesn’t allow anyone to power it on, if the doors are not shut properly.

Nitrogen is pumped in great amounts through the huge ear-canal-like thing which enables it to produce sounds up to 154 decibel! If you are wondering how loud 154 decibel is, you should check this out – How Loud Can it Get. In short, it is loud enough to rupture your eardrums and probably kill you too.

I came across this equipment first at [PopSci]
More information at [ESA]

So I wondered, if this is the most powerful sound system in Europe, are there more powerful ones elsewhere in the world?
Duh! Yeah. And as expected, it is in USA.

Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility (RATF)

Orion-Integrated-Environmental-TestingThe Orion Integrated Environmental Testing at the NASA Space Power Facility (SPF), a huge facility which looks pretty much like a nuclear power plant from afar, houses several other testing facilities, and the world’s largest space environment simulation chamber, also has the worlds most powerful sound system – The Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility. [Image]

The horns that produce sound here, are also powered by Nitrogen and there are 36 of them. It is able to produce a total sound pressure of 163 dB, which is a lot more than what LEAF can produce (because dB scale is not linear) – About seven times more powerful than standing next to a jet engine or a Formula 1 race car. In here, it is far too easy to kill a full grown man.

8 Million Years Later Our Descendants Will Receive Our Message

By Anupum Pant

Thanks to the LAser GEOdynamics Satellite or LAGEOS 1 developed by NASA, we can rest assured that a message ensconced in it will be received by our descendants 8 million years from now, when the satellite is estimated to crash land on Earth.

Note: LAGEOS 2 was a joint effort by NASA and ASI of Italy

Background

Structure: LAGEOS is basically a heavy metal ball measuring 60 cm in diameter containing no electronics or any sensors whatsoever. Its body is made up of aluminum and the internal core is made of brass. The brass core has been used to make sure that it weighs enough to do its job properly – the complete satellite weighs around 400 kg. The outer part is embedded with 422 reflectors. These reflectors make sure that the craft reflects back the light (laser) shone at it, to its source with minimum scattering.

Purpose: The primary purpose of the satellite isn’t to send a message to our future races, rather the satellite has been put up on orbit around the Earth to monitor several kinds of changes in long-term data like – exact shape of the planet, motion of tectonic plates, gravitational field measurement, measurement of the Earth’s wobble etc. This is done by sending laser pulses towards it from bases around the world located in US, Mexico, France, Germany, Poland, Australia, Egypt, China, Peru, Italy, and Japan. These laser pulses are reflected back to the Earth bases by those 422 reflectors. As the satellite has a very stable orbit, the measurement of time difference taken to send and receive the laser pulse gives away a lot of useful information.

 The message plaque:

Quoting from the NASA’s website:

LAGEOS 1 also contains a message plaque addressed to human and other beings of the far distant future with maps of the Earth from 3 different eras – 268 million years in the past, present day, and 8 million years in the future (the satellite’s estimated decay date).

The Evil Lunar Dust

By Anupum Pant

Space exploration is a tough job. Besides a myriad of challenges that have to be dealt with, space equipment and astronauts travelling to places like the moon or mars, have to deal with a peculiarly wicked foe – The dust.

This isn’t the kind of normal dust we deal with here on earth. ‘Downright evil’ is the phrase that describes the dust on moon! We may not realize it, but lunar dust is a filthy thing and causes a lot of problems. Of course, the dust on mars is no better.

Back in 1972

For instance, let us see how moon dust makes things complicated for engineers and astronauts.

Most of the upper surface of the moon is covered with a mixture of loose material comprising of dust, soil, rocks and pebbles (and other random stuff too). Normally, at places, this layer of mixture ranges from 4 to 6 meters in thickness.

The fine part of this mixture is called the lunar soil and is significantly different from the soil found on earth. It is present almost everywhere on the surface of the moon and is a result of breaking of rocks into small particles by meteorite and micrometeorite impacts; also there is no wind and rain to soften the pieces. This is the part of that loose stuff which is known for causing immense troubles.

The dust is super-fine and extremely hard. You can think of it as collection of little shards of glass. Despite being completely dry, it sticks to everything it touches and as it is super-fine, it can get into tiny creases. If inhaled, it can be toxic; like millions of tiny sharp shards piercing into the inner walls of your respiratory system. A tiny amount of it can eventually kill a full grown man.

Back in 1972, the Apollo 17’s crew learnt this as soon as they stepped out. The dust started clogging their air vents and started dropping the pressure. When returning to their space capsule, Jack Schmitt and Eugene Cernan forgot to brush off the dust. They were stuck with it for the whole time during their journey back home. Some of the dust went airborne in the craft and Schmitt started complaining of congestion. Fortunately, the amount was too small to hurt them a lot. Soon the symptoms subsided and space agencies learnt a lesson – Find a way to deal with the lunar dust.

On mars: Dust on mars can travel places due to dust storms and cause more problems.

Solution

Scientists at NASA found a great way to deal with this dust using an electric zap. They were able to develop electrical fields which can clear about 99% of the dust from the equipment. These dust shields will be tried on in the year 2016.

Lycurgus Cup – An Ancient Nanotech Marvel

By Anupum Pant

The concepts of modern nanotechnology must have been first seeded in the year 1959 by the renowned physicist Richard Feynman, but Romans were already doing it back in 300 AD (around 290-325 AD). About 1700 years back, utilizing the principles of Nanotechnology, Roman engineers had crafted a magnificent chalice – Lycurgus Cup (picture). Like the Prince Rupert’s drop, this is another glass marvel you should know about.

Side note: You can listen to the legendary lecture by Dr. Feynman on YouTube – There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, where he discusses the “possibility of synthesis via direct manipulation of atoms”, or Nanotechnology.

Lycurgus cup description

The Lycurgus cup was probably the first ever optical artificial [meta]material – Ruby Glass – engineered to have properties that may not be found in nature. Its unusual optical properties are something that makes it stand out.

Normally, the cup appears green, but if it is illuminated from the inside or lit up using a light placed behind it, it glows ruby-red; hence the name, ruby glass. This kind of glass is known as a Dichroic glass. Dichroic  literally means ”two colored” and is derived from the Greek words ”di” for two, and ”chroma” for color; in this case, the colors green and red.

The technology behind this cup baffled scientists for around 40 years (from 1950s to 1990s). It was only in 1990s that they figured out how it really worked. The goblet has been preserved well, and is presently at display in the British Museum.

Dichroic glass

Dichroic glasses do not use paints, dyes, or any coloring agents for the color. They are made using fine coatings on glass. The coatings themselves do not have a color, but rather they bend light to reflect colors like a prism does, to make rainbows.

These colors are visible due to the presence of very minute amounts of finely ground gold and silver particles in it. Romans could have included these powders unknowingly as contaminants or might have added them on purpose to achieve the very effect, we’ll never know.

Inspired by an age-old technology

NASA, in the 1950s, used a similar technology to fabricate a kind of glass that could selectively reflect light wavelengths. They achieved this by depositing a thin-film of metal on the glass.

With innumerable combinations of oxides, glass colors and patterns available, the possibilities to utilize this phenomenon for various useful purposes are endless.
The unusual properties of this cup have also inspired material scientists to create concepts for an invisibility cloak using modern nanofabrication technology. [Source]

I want to study interesting materials like these

If you think the Lycurgus cup, Wolverine’s claws and Aerogels (If you haven’t heard about it, you must definitely check this out!) are awesome. You can make a career in researching materials like these by making a foray into Materials Science and Engineering. Most good universities offer a course in it. It is a budding field, growing at a rapid pace, replete with real-world challenging conundrums waiting to be resolved.

Miniature Sealed Self-Sustaining Ecosystem

By Anupum Pant
  1. 53 years ago, David Latimer (80) from Surrey planted an indoor Spiderwort in a huge glass globular bottle. He has watered it just once, in the year 1972. Since then, this self-sustaining ecosystem, has been sealed away from the outside world for around 40 years. In spite of being sealed away like that, the plant has grown very well in its own miniature ecosystem [Picture]. The only regular external energy it has received has been in the form of light. [more about this self-sustaining ecosystem and how it works]
  2. The EcoSphere or the Original EcoSphere takes it to the next level by introducing a shrimp in a similar setting. Like David Latimer’s bottle, this is also a self-sustaining ecosystem consisting of algae, bacteria and shrimp. The company that sells these things says that the shrimps would last for just around 10 years. Although, they also claim of 25-year-old spheres with living shrimps.
    10 years is little as compared to the ecosystem discussed in the first point. But we are talking about a pet living in a completely sealed space for 10 years, without demanding food, change of water or an appointment with the vet. For these little creatures it is probably a safe haven away from the dirty oil slicked oceans and predators; or probably just a prison.

These little biospheres are a far simpler and smaller versions of our big worlds. We are like the shrimp and the trees, our algae. This diagram explains in a simple way, how these artificial, extremely simplified versions of Earth work – [Diagram]

The shrimp and algae biospheres were discovered by two scientists, the late Dr. Joe Hanson and the late Dr. Clair Folsome. Later, NASA became interested in these systems. There got interested because:

  1. This tiny model of the Earth could add information to NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program for studying Earth’s biosphere.
  2. It could help NASA’s research on human life support systems directed toward the construction of space stations for exploring our solar system.

Make it for yourself: Make magazine published a detailed DIY guide on how to create these living biospheres at home. [Link]
Carl Sagan’s Review of these biospheres: The World Arrived in The Mail.

Random Foliage Fact:

The world’s smallest park is located in the median strip of SW Naito Parkway, approaching esplanade along the Willamette River near SW Taylor Street in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Mill Ends Park, a 2 ft is a circular park, has held a place in the Guinness book of Records since 1971. It isn’t a park you can send your children to. – [Wikipedia]

Tardigrades – Toughest Creatures on Earth

By Anupum Pant

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So, if you think elephants or cockroaches are tough, that could be because you probably haven’t heard about these amazing creatures called Tardigrades (picture).

What are Tardigrades?

Tardigrades, also known as moss piglets or waterbears, are oddly cute little animals that live in water and feed on moss. Their size ranges from 0.1 mm to 1.5 mm and they have eight legs (they walk like bears). The most extreme thing about these extremophiles is that they can survive almost anything (actually, they kind of die for a while with an option to come back to life later). Here is a list of things Tardigrades can survive. They can:

  • Survive without water and food for 10 years.
  • Waddle away in the vacuüm of space (for 10 days & get exposed UV radiation), come back and walk around as if nothing happened.
  • Survive 1000 times more radiation that would kill an elephant.
  • Live through extremely low temperatures (almost absolute zero) or high temperatures (~150 degree Centigrade)
  • Repair their own DNA after getting exposed to lethal amounts of radiation.
  • Survive pressures of about 300 Jumbo jets stacked on a person. (6 times more than the deepest ocean trenches)

Scientists love them

People at NASA and the European Space Agency love doing tests on them because they think, Tardigrades can help them understand the origin of life on earth (probably by supporting Panspermia). Also, scientists want to find out more about their extreme capabilities. If you ask them, if these things are aliens, they’ll tell you – “Probably not”

[Learn more about Tardigrades]