In 1610, Galileo redesigned the telescope and discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons. Nearly 400 years later, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope used its powerful optics to look deep into space—enabling scientists to pin down the age of the universe.
Suffice it to say that getting a better look at things produces major scientific advances.
In a paper published on July 18 in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of scientists led by Craig DeForest—solar physicist at Southwest Research Institute’s branch in Boulder, Colorado—demonstrate that this historical trend still holds. Using advanced algorithms and data-cleaning techniques, the team discovered never-before-detected, fine-grained structures in the outer corona—the Sun’s million-degree atmosphere—by analyzing images taken by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. The new results also provide foreshadowing of what might be seen by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which after its launch in the summer 2018 will orbit directly through that region.
New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex Martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up.
Understanding the Martian atmosphere is a key topic in planetary science, from its current status to its past history. Mars’ atmosphere continuously leaks out to space, and is a crucial factor in the planet’s past, present, and future habitability – or lack of it. The planet has lost the majority of its once much denser and wetter atmosphere, causing it to evolve into the dry, arid world we see today.
However, the tenuous atmosphere Mars has retained remains complex, and scientists are working to understand if and how the processes within it are connected over space and time.
Cancer and rodent studies were on the crew’s timeline today to help doctors and scientists improve the health of humans in space and on Earth. The crew also conducted an emergency drill aboard the International Space Station.
Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor examined endothelial cells through a microscope for the AngieX Cancer Therapy study. The new cancer research seeks to test a safer, more effective treatment that targets tumor cells and blood vessels. Commander Drew Feustel partnered with astronaut Alexander Gerst and checked on mice being observed for the Rodent Research-7 (RR-7) experiment. RR-7 is exploring how microgravity impacts microbes living inside organisms.
Astronaut Ricky Arnold and Gerst collected and stowed their blood samples for a pair of ongoing human research studies. Arnold went on to work a series of student investigations dubbed NanoRacks Module-9 exploring a variety of topics including botany, biology and physics.
This is a new picture of Neptune taken from the Earth. It’s nothing short of amazing.
You’ve probably seen better pictures of Neptune from when Voyager 2 flew by in 1989. But there isn’t currently a spacecraft orbiting Neptune, so if scientists want pictures, they need to take them from 2.9 billion miles away. An upgrade on the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile has now allowed the ground-based telescope to take images as crisp as those taken by Hubble, a telescope that orbits Earth.
The Very Large Telescope consists of four telescopes with 8.2-meter (27-foot) mirrors in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. Today, scientists at the observatory have released the first observations taken with laser tomography, the new adaptive optics mode on its GALACSI unit, which works alongside a spectrograph instrument called MUSE on one of the telescopes.
A new infrared instrument on a telescope in Hawaii will let astronomers find more exoplanets orbiting red dwarf stars. The discoveries may include rocky worlds that are potentially habitable.
On this day: 15 July 1799, as French soldiers were strengthening the defences of Fort Julien, just north-east of the Egyptian port of Rosetta (Rashid), Lt Pierre-François Bouchard spotted a slab of stone with inscriptions on one side that his soldiers had uncovered. This slab was named the Rosetta Stone, and a few hundred years later, the name would be carried by ESA’s Rosetta Mission, hoping to unlock the secrets of a comet… More at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/coll…1&partId=1
For millennia, our planet has sustained a robust ecosystem; healing each deforestation, algae bloom, pollution or imbalance caused by natural events. Before the arrival of an industrialized, destructive and dominant global species, it could pretty much deal with anything short of a major meteor impact. In the big picture, even these cataclysmic events haven’t destroyed the environment—they just changed the course of evolution and rearranged the alpha animal.
But with industrialization, the race for personal wealth, nations fighting nations, and modern comforts, we have recognized that our planet is not invincible. This is why Lifeboat Foundation exists. We are all about recognizing the limits to growth and protecting our fragile environment.
Check out this April news article on the US president’s forthcoming appointment of Jim Bridenstine, a vocal climate denier, as head of NASA. NASA is one of the biggest agencies on earth. Despite a lack of training or experience—without literacy in science, technology or astrophysics—he was handed an enormous responsibility, a staff of 17,000 and a budget of $19 billion.
In 2013, Bridenstine criticized former president Obama for wasting taxpayer money on climate research, and claimed that global temperatures stopped rising 15 years ago.
The Vox News headline states “Next NASA administrator is a Republican congressman with no background in science”. It points out that Jim Bridenstine’s confirmation has been controversial — even among members of his own party.
Sometimes, flip-flopping is a good thing
In less than one month, Jim Bridenstine has changed—he has changed a lot!
After less then a month as head of NASA, he is convinced that climate change is real, that human activity is the significant cause and that it presents an existential threat. He has changed from climate denier to a passionate advocate for doing whatever is needed to reverse our impact and protect the environment.
What changed?
Bridenstine acknowledges that he was a denier, but feels that exposure to the evidence and science is overwhelming and convincing—even in with just a few weeks exposure to world class scientists and engineers.
For anyone who still claims that there is no global warming or that the evidence is ‘iffy’, it is worth noting that Bridenstine was a hand-picked goon. His appointment was recommended by right wing conservatives and rubber stamped by the current administration. He was a Denier—but had a sufficiently open mind to listen to experts and review the evidence.
Do you suppose that the US president is listening? Do you suppose that he will grasp the most important issues of this century? What about other world leaders, legislative bodies and rock stars? Will they use their powers or influence to do the right thing? For the sake of our existence, let us hope they follow the lead of Jim Bridenstine, former climate denier!
