NASA •

Universe Is Expanding Rapidly than Believed

June 7, 2016 By Troy G. Bennett

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – The Universe is expanding rapidly than believed, researchers say. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration along with the European Space Agency have recently announced that the Universe is expanding up to 9 percent faster than previously thought.

The new rate of expansion is of estimated 73.2 miles per second per megaparsec.

A research team from the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University has developed a new and more accurate technique to measure the continuously increasing size of the cosmos. The new techniques measure stars and supernovae; about 2,400 Cepheid stars from 19 different galaxies and 300 Type 1a supernovae. Scientists compare the true brightness of the stars to their apparent brightness to precisely figure out how far they are. As for supernovae, they blaze so bright that they can reliably be used to measure distance. These celestial bodies were measured using the Hubble Space Telescope.

According to the researchers, the new rate of expansion is of estimated 73.2 miles per second per megaparsec. A megaparsec is 3.26 million light-years. The distance between the cosmic objects will as much as double in another 9.8 billion years.

These rates of expansion do not match previous predictions based on measurements of the Big Bang explosion’s left over remnant radiation. Scientists presume that this discrepancy is caused by the fact that the Universe has unknown subatomic particles. These particles travel just as fast as the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

Another theory might be that the dark energy may be shoveling galaxies apart more powerfully than previously thought. This overall resulting in the recent discovery that the Universe is expanding rapidly than believed, by 5 to 9 percent faster. About 95 percent of the cosmos is comprised by substances such as dark matter, dark energy, and dark radiation. These are mysterious elements that researchers have yet to fully understand.

Scientists are still trying to figure out a way to combine the two estimates. The new finding may also contradict Einstein’s general theory of relativity. This currently serves as the mathematical frame for calculating how the basic building blocks of matter interact. But it just might be that Einstein was wrong on this one.

A paper on the research will be published in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

IMAGE SOURCE: Pexels

NASA Discovered Unreported Sources of Air Pollution

June 2, 2016 By Clayton Meason

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – NASA discovered unreported sources of air pollution, according to a new report published earlier this week. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has located up to 39 unreported sources of toxic sulfur emission, using a brand new satellite-based method.

Sulfur dioxide is a contributor to acid rain and one of the main factors of respiratory illnesses.

The 39 newly discovered emission sources were found after analyzing satellite data from 2005 to 2014. These sources are coal-burning power plants, oil and gas operations, and smelters. They are mostly located in the Middle East, Mexico, and Russia. These recent sources are now considered to account for approximately 12 percent of man-made emissions of sulfur dioxide. Which means they have a significant impact on the air quality in the said regions.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a contributor to acid rain, as well as being one of the main factors leading to respiratory illnesses. Research has linked sulfur dioxide to bronchoconstriction and increased asthma symptoms, while even aggravating existing heart diseases. It’s one of the six air pollutants monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

NASA discovered unreported sources of air pollution thanks to two satellite technology innovations. First, the computer processing that converts raw satellite data from the Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument (on board of NASA’s Aura spacecraft) into precise estimations of SO2 has been improved. Because of this, scientists are now able to detect small sulfur dioxide concentrations more accurately. This means oil-related activities and medium-size power plants as well, together with bigger, known sources. The second innovation was the development of a computer program which detects the SO2, which has been dispersed and diluted by winds more precisely.

Along with the 39 unreported sulfur dioxide emissions, NASA’s team of researchers has also located 75 natural sources of SO2. These sources come primarily from non-erupting volcanoes, which leak the toxic sulfur dioxide throughout the year. Although scientists were already aware of these natural pollution sources, monitoring them wasn’t possible until now. Many volcanoes are located in remote areas. The unique advantage of satellite datasets is spatial coverage.

This new report shows the importance of new and improved satellite data, together with improved analysis technique, which allows researchers to detect small air pollution sources anywhere on the globe.

IMAGE SOURCE: Pixabay

NASA’s Studies on Killer Asteroids May Be Riddled with Statistical Errors

May 25, 2016 By Troy G. Bennett

Artist’s impression of NASA’s asteroid-hunting telescope WISE.

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – Nathan Myhrvold a former CTO at Microsoft and amateur asteroid hunter claims he has revised the data on killer asteroids submitted by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and found that asteroids’ sizes have been largely miscalculated.

In a research paper to be published soon in the journal Icarus, the billionaire technologist says that NASA has miscalculated the sizes of more than 157,000 asteroids. He added in a recent interview, that none of the results of the NEOWISE mission can be replicated.

He focused on a 2011 study published by the NEOWISE team which claimed that they can assess the size of an asteroid with higher accuracy than 10 percent. The tech billionaire said that NASA scientists didn’t take into consideration the margin errors when they applied the analysis of a few asteroids to larger populations.

NASA scientists also ignored Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation when they build their thermal computer models, the critic says. While the his own models suggest that statistical errors should not be more than 30 percent, Myhrvold found margins of errors of 300 percent in NEOWISE team’s scientific papers.

NEOWISE scientists dismissed the criticism. Ned Wright, lead scientist at WISE, said he found a plethora of mistakes in Myhrvold’s 110-page paper. Wright argued that the mission’s data was confirmed by two other infrared observatories and WISE statistical errors should not be larger than 15 percent. Wright also resorted to a personal attack saying that Myhrvold himself “is responsible in part for a lot of bad software” as a former Microsoft engineer.

Amy Mainzer, a NEOWISE investigator, noted that her work’s critic took diameter for radius in his paper. She added that her team has analyzed the research paper in recent months and submitted errors to the author.

Mainzer noted that Myhrvold’s study hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet.

Myhrvold replied that the errors are purely ‘cosmetic’ and doesn’t alter his conclusions. He said that NEOWISE investigators are not going to admit they were wrong because many of them are already seeking funds for a new asteroid-hunting observatory called NEOCam.

“They’re up for this NEOCam thing and they’re afraid it looks bad. And it does look bad,”

he said

The amateur asteroid hunter has found errors in other scientific papers over the years. In 2013, he criticized the method of calculating dinosaur growth rates. He has been studying asteroids and dinosaurs for more than three decades now.

Image Source: Wikimedia

New Horizons Detects Mystery Kuiper Belt Object beyond Pluto

May 21, 2016 By Gary Wymore

Artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object.

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – While it has been racing toward our solar system’s outer reaches, NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft got a glimpse twice of a mystery 90-mile-wide Kuiper Belt object (KBO) dubbed 1994 JR1 that is located some 3 billion miles from our host star.

Scientists believe that the elusive space rock may be a remnant from our solar system’s earliest days.

The spacecraft snapped a photo of the object with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on April 7-8. The image was taken from a 69-million-mile distance and it is consistent with similar findings made last fall when the probe first saw the KBO, from a 170-million-mile distance.

Simon Porter, researcher with the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute who is involved in the New Horizons mission, noted that the discovery points to a series of remarkable findings. Porter said that the two sets of observations allowed his team to determine JR1’s position within 600 miles, which is the most accurate orbit for a small KBO so far.

The newly pinpointed orbit also challenged an older theory that JR1 may be an ancient satellite of Pluto. The recent observations helped the New Horizons team calculate the space rock’s rotation period.

Researchers believe that JR1 completes a rotation every 5.4 hours. They based their assumptions on the amount of sunlight reflected by the small object’s surface. But having a 5.4-hour day suggests that the KBO is spinning relatively fast, the team argued.

“This is all part of the excitement of exploring new places and seeing things never seen before,”

Spencer said.

The team expects more close-ups of Kuiper Belt objects in the next several years. Scientists eyed at least 20 more candidates that could help them understand the origins of the solar system. NASA now needs the funds necessary to extend the mission.

New Horizons made history on July 14, 2015, when it performed humankind’s first flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny probe is now heading to the Kuiper Belt for another flyby. New Horizons is slated to reach the KBO dubbed 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019.

Between 2006 and 2015, the spacecraft traveled nearly 3 billion miles to reach Pluto. After the historic flyby it sent a series of high-resolution snapshots of both Pluto and its moons.

New Horizons converts plutonium radiation into energy and it loses a few watts with each passing year. But NASA believes that the probe will remain fully operational for at least two more decades.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Astronomers Detect Icy Spider on Pluto

April 12, 2016 By Troy G. Bennett

Radial fractures displayed in the form of a spider have just been spotted on Pluto.

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – The latest images of Pluto from NASA show a spider-like feature that stretches on the surface of the most distant planet in our solar system. This is the latest development on the series of oddities showcased by this so-called astronomical oddball.

One can clearly see in the pictures a series of red tendrils that are all radiating from the same central point, thus forming a spider. The images were captured back in July by the New Horizons spacecraft from NASA. While the strange sighting has sparked countless questions, scientists have little to work with at the moment. Oliver White, who is working with the geology team of New Horizons, has underlined the labyrinthine feature of Pluto:

“Oh, what a tangled web Pluto’s geology weaves. The pattern these fractures form is like nothing else we’ve seen in the outer solar system, and shows once again that anywhere we look on Pluto, we see something different.”

New Horizons was launched back in 2006 and is the first spacecraft meant to visit the Kuiper Belt and Pluto. It has completed the first flyby of the dwarf planet in 2015, and since then the discoveries have constantly been flowing. For instance, the spacecraft has shown us that Pluto has mountains that feature methane snow and regions where liquid nitrogen used to gather into lakes. The planet also shows signs of erosion, which might be linked to the current spider mystery.

On the pictures, there are six visible fractures on its surface, of varying lengths. The longest one has been named Sleipnir Fossa and measures over 360 miles. The shortest one barely reaches sixty miles. Scientists have determined that landscape does not influence the fractures.

NASA has stated that the tendrils extend to the west and north across rolling, mottled plains which are featured in the high northern latitudes. However, they also stretch to the south, where they cut through Tartarus Dorsa, a “bladed terrain”.

This is not the first fracture discovered on Pluto. However, most of them run parallel to one another because of the expansion of the icy crust of the planet. The radial position of these tendrils suggests that material might be gathering up from below the surface. The fact that they are red is also considered an anomaly.

Image Source: Gizmodo

MESSENGER Mission Debunks Mercury’s Dark Tint

March 8, 2016 By Clayton Meason

"Graphite Deposits Account for Mercury's Color, according to MESSENGER"

NASA explains that the planet’s dark color is caused by high concentration of carbon.

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – It seems that NASA’s on a winning streak, according to the latest study involving Mercury. After posting the pictures depicting the farthest galaxy ever discovered, the US space agency recently explained why Mercury’s surface is so dark. Thanks to the MESSENGER mission, NASA shed some light over Mercury’s shady surface.

The Messenger Mission, which is short for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging Mission, started back in 2011. From 2011 till 2015, the floating space lab has performed several flybys around Mercury, and, during its closest approach to the planet’s surface, it was able to detect a high level of low-energy neutrons.

Well, that’s not very exciting, isn’t it? But wait, there’s more to this than just another number.

As we know, earlier theories regarding Mercury’s surface explained that the dark crust was formed after several ancient carbon-rich comets impacted the planetary surface.

But, thanks to MESSENGER’s reading, the scientists from NASA have discovered that the planet’s darkish color was not formed after a comet hit the planet, but due to graphite deposits found below the surface of Mercury.

Larry Nittler, one of the think-tanks involved in the project said that the previous theories according to which the planet’s shadow tint can be attributed to an external event were mostly based on pen and paper projections and computer simulations.

MESSENGER’s latest discovery shows that the dark color of the planet can be attributed to the presence of large graphite deposits found deep below the surface. Using an apparatus called a neutron spectrometer, the researcher picked up a high concentration of low-energy neutrons when the craft passed over large deposits of carbon.

According to the theories regarding Mercury’s genesis and development, a long time ago and in our galaxy, Mercy was covered by oceans of lava. Naturally, the planet’s exterior temperature was pretty high. Over the time, the lava began to cool down, and the minerals began to solidify and descend below the crust.

However, according to the recent theory, not all minerals managed to find their way underground. Graphite, for instance, floated just above the surface, and in time, created the surface of Mercury.

As we’ve stated before, previous theories regarding the planet’s color were saying that during Mercury’s first years of life, a comet impacted its surface. Supposedly, the impact was so violent that it pushed the carbon to the surface.

Well, this is now ancient history, as direct observation demonstration that Mercury’s the one which chose its watermark.

Of course, the MESSENGER Mission is far from over. The scientists working on the project are expecting to uncover more facts about the planet.

Photo credits:wikipedia

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