Source: c-isnenegro
Classical Genetics
Gregor Mendel is the founder of genetics as we know it. In the 1850s, he bred garden peas in order to study patterns of heredity. He collected data from hundreds of plants across generations and used statistical analysis to predict these patterns.
In his experiments, he studied the law of dominance, the law of segregation, and the law of independent assortment.
Law of Dominance
When two homozygous (purebred) organisms for opposing traits are crossed, the offspring will be hybrid (they will carry two different alleles) but their phenotype will be that of the dominant trait.
Law of Segregation
The law of segregation says that during the formation of alleles, the two traits carried by each parent separate. Thus two hybrid parents, although they may have the phenotype for the dominant allele, can have a baby with the recessive phenotype (phenotype is what the organism looks like, while genotype are the actual alleles of the organism)
Monohybrid Cross
A monohybrid cross is an act of crossing two organisms that are hybrid for a single trait, such as Tt x Tt (T= tall t=short). The result of a monohybrid cross is 1:2:1 where there is a 25% chance the organism will be homozygous dominant, 50% chance the organism will be heterozygous dominant and a 25% chance the organism will be homozygous recessive.
Backcross or Testcross
If you don’t know whether an individual plant or animal is homozygous or heterozygous, it is effective to cross them with a homozygous recessive individual. If all the offspring display the dominant trait, the mystery parent is most likely homozygous dominant. If the offspring have a mix of dominant and recessive traits, the mystery parent is heterozygous dominant.
Law of Independent Assortment
When a cross is carried out between two individuals who are hybrid for two traits on separate chromosomes, during gamete formation, the genes for one trait (for example, height) are not inherited along with the genes for another trait (such as seed colour)
T= tall t=short Y=yellow y=green
The diagram above is of a dihybrid individual. T will be inherited along with Y, and t will be inherited along with y. The only factor that determines how the alleles are inherited is how the homologous pairs line up during metaphase I.
Here is a Punnett square for this dihybrid cross.
The phenotype ratio ends up being 9:3:3:1, as shown above.
Incomplete Dominance
Incomplete dominance leads to the blending of treats. For example, if a long watermelon (LL) crosses with a round watermelon (RR) to produce an oval watermelon (RL), incomplete dominance is at play.
Another example is the Japanese four o’clock flower. Below, 1 red flower and 1 white flower combine to make 4 pink flowers.
Codominance
In codominance, both traits show. For example, the MN blood group in humans is a codominant trait (don’t confuse these with blood types). These are based on distinct molecules on the surface of the cell. A person can be homozygous for M, homozygous for N, or heterozygous for MN, where both molecules appear on the blood cell.
Multiple Alleles
Most genes exist in two allelic forms, etc tall or short. When there are more than two alleles, the gene has multiple alleles. Human blood type is a good example, as there are 4 groups, determined by 3 alleles. Blood type can either be written as its letters A, B, O, and AB, or I^a, I^b, I^a I^b, and ii. “I” stands for immunoglobin.
Polygenic Inheritance
Some traits, like skin and hair colour result from the blending of several separate genes that vary along a continuum. They are controlled by multiple genes, and so are polygenic. This leads to a wide variation in genotype.
(y-axis is labelled: the proportion of the population)
Sex-Linked Genes
When a trait is carried on the X chromosome, it is sex-linked. Since women have 2 X chromosomes, if the trait is a recessive mutation, she will need to carry two mutated genes for it to express itself. If she only has one, she will be a carrier. Meanwhile, since men only have 1 chromosome (XY) they only need 1 gene for it to express itself. Recessive sex-linked traits are much more common that dominant sex-linked traits. This explains why men are much more likely to have sex-linked traits like colourblindness and haemophilia.
Epigenetics
In some scenarios, the environment can alter gene expression. For example, in fruit flies, the expression of the vestigial wings (short, and shrivelled) can repaired in higher temperatures.
Sex-Influenced Inheritance
Sex-influenced traits are not the same as linked traits. For example, baldness is a trait expressed both in men and women, however, it expresses itself very differently in the two sexes.
Karyotypes
Karyotypes are lab procedures, where the size, shape, and number of chromosomes are analyzed. This takes place during metaphase, as this is when the chromosomes are fully condensed. In our 46 chromosomes, we have 44 autosomes (22 pairs) and 2 sex chromosomes.
This karyotype is of an average biological male.
The Pedigree
A pedigree is a family tree that studies the inheritance of a specific trait. Normally, in these graphs, a woman is represented by a circle, and a man by a square. In the pedigree below, black shapes represent deaf people.
On this pedigree, deafness is shown to be autosomally recessive. We know it is not dominant, as when a deaf parent has children as shown in this pedigree, none of their children has the phenotype, and all the affected children have unaffected parents. We also know it isn’t sex-linked, as looking at the two daughters in the F3 generation, neither of their fathers is affected.
Mutations
Mutations are abnormalities within the genome. They can occur in the somatic (body) cells and can cause cancer, or they can occur during gametogenesis, and affect future offspring. (When the somatic cells are impacted, future generations are not.)
Gene mutations- Gene mutations are changes in a DNA sequence.
Chromosome mutations- Chromosome mutations are able to be observed under a light microscope. An example of a chromosome mutation is nondisjunction. Nondisjunction may add an entirely new chromosome. Some other types of chromosomal aberrations include:
- Deletion- When a fragment lacking a centromere is lost during cell division
- Inversion- When a chromosomal fragment reattaches to its original chromosome, but in the reverse orientation
- Translocation- When a fragment of a chromosome becomes attached to a non-homologous chromosome
Nondisjunction
Nondisjunction is an error during meiosis, where homologous chromosomes do not separate properly. When this happens, one gamete has two homologues, while the other doesn’t have any.
An abnormal chromosomal condition is known as aneuploidy. If a chromosome is present in triplicate, the condition is called trisomy. For example, people with down syndrome have 3 #21 chromosomes, and so have trisomy-21. Any organism with an extra set of chromosomes is called a triploid. The cells of the endosperm or cotyledon of seed are triploid. When an organism has more than 3 sets of chromosomes, they are a polyploid. Polyploid plants have abnormally large flowers and fruits.
Happy 230th Birthday, Enceladus, Our Solar System’s Greatest Hope For Life Beyond Earth
“It is still a complete unknown whether Earth is the only world in the Solar System to house any form of life: past or present. Venus and Mars may have been Earth-like for a billion years or more, and life could have arisen there early on. Frozen worlds with subsurface oceans, like Enceladus, Europa, Triton or Pluto, are completely different from Earth’s present environment, but have the same raw ingredients that could potentially lead to life as well.
Are water, energy, and the right molecules all we need for life to arise? Finding even the most basic organisms (or even the precursor components of organisms) anyplace else in the Universe would lead to a scientific revolution. A single discovered cell in the geysers of Enceladus would be the most momentous discovery of the 21st century. With the recent demise of Cassini, on the 230th anniversary of Enceladus’ discovery, the possibility of finding the incredible compels us to go back. May we be bold enough to make it so.”
On this date in 1789, William Herschel, armed with the most powerful telescope known to humanity at the time (you can get a lot of grant money when you discover the planet Uranus and name it after the King), discovered a relatively small moon of Saturn just 500 kilometers across: Enceladus. For some 200 years, Enceladus was never seen as more than a single pixel across, until the Voyager probes flew by it. What they revealed was a remarkable, unique world in all the Solar System. Now that the Cassini mission is complete, we can look back at all we know about this world, and all the signs point to a remarkable story: there’s a subsurface ocean, possibly suitable as a home for undersea life.
Celebrating Women’s Equality Day Across NASA
August 26 is celebrated in the United States as Women’s Equality Day. On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was signed into law and American women were granted the constitutional right to vote. The suffragists who fought hard for a woman’s right to vote opened up doors for trailblazers who have helped shape our story of spaceflight, research and discovery. On Women’s Equality Day, we celebrate women at NASA who have broken barriers, challenged stereotypes and paved the way for future generations. This list is by no means exhaustive.
In the earliest days of space exploration, most calculations for early space missions were done by “human computers,” and most of these computers were women. These women’s calculations helped the U.S. launch its first satellite, Explorer 1. This image from 1953, five years before the launch of Explorer 1, shows some of those women on the campus of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
These women were trailblazers at a time when most technical fields were dominated by white men. Janez Lawson (seen in this photo), was the first African American hired into a technical position at JPL. Having graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, she later went on to have a successful career as a chemical engineer.
Mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose life story was told in the book and film “Hidden Figures,” is 101 years old today! Coincidentally, Johnson’s birthday falls on August 26: which is appropriate, considering all the ways that she has stood for women’s equality at NASA and the country as a whole.
Johnson began her career in 1953 at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that preceded NASA, one of a number of African-American women hired to work as “human computers.” Johnson became known for her training in geometry, her leadership and her inquisitive nature; she was the only woman at the time to be pulled from the computing pool to work with engineers on other programs.
Johnson was responsible for calculating the trajectory of the 1961 flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space, as well as verifying the calculations made by electronic computers of John Glenn’s 1962 launch to orbit and the 1969 Apollo 11 trajectory to the moon. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama on Nov. 24, 2015.
JoAnn Morgan was an engineer at Kennedy Space Center at a time when the launch room was crowded with men. In spite of working for all of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and being promoted to a senior engineer, Morgan was still not permitted in the firing room at liftoff — until Apollo 11, when her supervisor advocated for her because of her superior communication skills. Because of this, Morgan was the instrumentation controller — and the only woman — in the launch room for the Apollo 11 liftoff.
Morgan’s career at NASA spanned over 45 years, and she continued to break ceiling after ceiling for women involved with the space program. She excelled in many other roles, including deputy of Expendable Launch Vehicles, director of Payload Projects Management and director of Safety and Mission Assurance. She was one of the last two people who verified the space shuttle was ready to launch and the first woman at KSC to serve in an executive position, associate director of the center.
Oceola Hall worked in NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity for over 25 years. She was NASA’s first agency-wide Federal Women’s program manager, from 1974 – 1978. Hall advanced opportunities for NASA women in science, engineering and administrative occupations. She was instrumental in initiating education programs for women, including the Simmons College Strategic Leadership for Women Program.
Hall’s outstanding leadership abilities and vast knowledge of equal employment laws culminated in her tenure as deputy associate administrator for Equal Opportunity Programs, a position she held for five years. Hall was one among the first African-American women to be appointed to the senior executive service of NASA. This photo was taken at Marshall during a Federal Women’s Week Luncheon on November 11, 1977 where Hall served as guest speaker.
Hall was known for saying, “You have to earn your wings every day.”
The Astronaut Class of 1978, otherwise known as the “Thirty-Five New Guys,” was NASA’s first new group of astronauts since 1969. This class was notable for many reasons, including having the first African-American and first Asian-American astronauts and the first women.
Among the first women astronauts selected was Sally Ride. On June 18, 1983, Ride became the first American woman in space, when she launched with her four crewmates aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7. On that day, Ride made history and paved the way for future explorers.
When those first six women joined the astronaut corps in 1978, they made up nearly 10 percent of the active astronaut corps. In the 40 years since that selection, NASA selected its first astronaut candidate class with equal numbers of women and men, and women now comprise 34 percent of the active astronauts at NASA.
As a part of our Artemis missions to return humans to the Moon and prepare for journeys to Mars, the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket will carry the Orion spacecraft on an important flight test. Veteran spaceflight engineer Charlie Blackwell-Thompson will helm the launch team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Her selection as launch director means she will be the first woman to oversee a NASA liftoff and launch team.
"A couple of firsts here all make me smile,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “First launch director for the world’s most powerful rocket — that’s humbling. And I am honored to be the first female launch director at Kennedy Space Center. So many amazing women that have contributed to human space flight, and they blazed the trail for all of us.”
As we move forward as a space agency, embarking on future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, we reflect on the women who blazed the trail and broke glass ceilings. Without their perseverance and determination, we would not be where we are today.
In this image, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch pose for a portrait inside the Kibo laboratory module on the International Space Station. Both Expedition 59 flight engineers are members of NASA’s 2013 class of astronauts.
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CURSOS UTN 2019
#Introducción a la programación- codeando en 1 mes
#Python desde bajo cero
#Placas de desarrollo Arduino para todo y en
#IOT Internet of thing- todo el mundo por tcpip y mqtg
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Clases en UTN2019
#Introducción a la programación- codeando en 1 mes
#Python desde bajo cero
#Placas de desarrollo Arduino para todo y en todo
#IOT Internet of thing- todo el mundo POR tcpip y mqtg
#IA jugando con IA en la Vida comun
How Do Space Telescopes Break Down Light?
Space telescopes like Hubble and our upcoming James Webb Space Telescope use light not only to create images, but can also break light down into individual colors (or wavelengths). Studying light this way can give us a lot of detail about the object that emitted that light. For example, studying the components of the light from exoplanets can tell us about its atmosphere’s color, chemical makeup, and temperature. How does this work?
Remember the primary colors you learned about in elementary school?
Those colors are known as the pigment or subtractive colors. Every other color is some combination of the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue.
Light also has its own primary colors, and they work in a similar way. These colors are known as additive or light colors.
TVs make use of light’s colors to create the pictures we see. Each pixel of a TV screen contains some amount of red, green and blue light. The amount of each light determines the overall color of the pixel. So, each color on the TV comes from a combination of the primary colors of light: red, green and blue.
Space telescope images of celestial objects are also a combination of the colors of light.
Every pixel that is collected can be broken down into its base colors. To learn even more, astronomers break the red, green and blue light down into even smaller sections called wavelengths.
This breakdown is called a spectrum.
With the right technology, every pixel of light can also be measured as a spectrum.
Images show us the big picture, while a spectrum reveals finer details. Astronomers use spectra to learn things like what molecules are in planet atmospheres and distant galaxies.
An Integral Field Unit, or IFU, is a special tool on the James Webb Space Telescope that captures images and spectra at the same time.
The IFU creates a unique spectrum for each pixel of the image the telescope is capturing, providing scientists with an enormous amount of valuable, detailed data. So, with an IFU we can get an image, many spectra and a better understanding of our universe.
Watch the full video where this method of learning about planetary atmospheres is explained:
The James Webb Space Telescope is our upcoming infrared space observatory, which will launch in 2021. It will spy the first galaxies that formed in the universe and shed light on how galaxies evolve, how stars and planetary systems are born and tell us about potentially habitable planets around other stars.
To learn more about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, visit the website, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Text and graphics credit: Space Telescope Science Institute
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Understanding UK Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Since the beginning of SCI Energy Group’s blog series, new legislation has come into place regarding emission targets. Instead of the previous 80% reduction target, the UK must now achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This makes significant, rapid emission reduction even more critical. This article introduces the main sources of UK CO2 emissions across individual sectors.
The Big Picture
In 2018, UK CO2 emissions totalled to roughly 364 million tonnes. This was 2.4% lower than 2017 and 43.5% lower than 1990. The image below shows how much each individual sector contributed to the total UK carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. As can be seen, large emitting sectors include: energy supply, transport and residential. For this reason, CO2 emission trends from these sectors are discussed in this article.
Figure 1 Shows the percentage contribution toward Total UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions per Sector (2018) Figure: BEIS
Transport Sector
In 2018, the transport sector accounted for 1/3rd of total UK CO2 emissions. Since 1990, there has been relatively little change in the level of greenhouse gas emissions from this sector. Historically, transport has been the second most-emitting sector. However, due to emission reductions in the energy supply sector, it is now the biggest emitting sector and has been since 2016. Emission sources include road transport, railways, domestic aviation, shipping, fishing & aircraft support vehicles.
The main source of emissions are petrol and diesel in road transport.
Ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) can provide emission reductions in this sector. Some examples of these include: hybrid electric, battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In 2018, there were 200,000 ULEV’s on the road in the UK. In addition to this, there was a 53% increase in ULEV vehicle registration compared to 2016. In 2018, UK government released the ‘Road to Zero Strategy’, which seeks to see 50% of new cars to be ULEV’s by 2030 and 40% of new vans.
Energy Supply Sector
In the past, the energy supply sector was the biggest emitting sector but, since 1990, this sector has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 60% making it the second-biggest emitting sector. Between 2017 and 2018, this sector accounted for the largest decrease in CO2 emissions (7.2%). Emission sources included fuel combustion for electricity generation and other energy production sources, The main sources of emission are use of natural gas and coal in power plants.
In 2015, the Carbon Price Floor tax changed from £9/tonne CO2 emitted to £18/ tonne CO2 emitted. This resulted in a shift from coal to natural gas use for power generation. There has also been a considerable growth in low-carbon technologies for power generation. All of these have contributed to emission reductions in this sector.
Figure 2 - Natural gas power plant
Residential Sector
Out of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the residential sector, CO2 emissions account for 96%. Emissions from this sector are heavily influenced by external temperatures. For example, colder temperatures drive higher emissions as more heating is required.
In 2018, this sector accounted for 18% of total UK CO2 emissions. Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 2.8% increase in residential emissions. Overall, emissions from this sector have dropped by 16% since 1990. Emission sources include fuel combustion for heating and cooking, garden machinery and aerosols. The main source of emission are natural gas for heating and cooking.
Summary
The UK has reduced CO2 emissions by 43.5% since 1990. However, further emission reductions are required to meet net-zero targets. The energy supply sector has reduced emissions by 60% since 1990 but remains the second biggest emitter. In comparison to this, emission reductions in the residential sector are minor. Yet, they are still greater than the transport sector, which has remained relatively static. Each of these sectors require significant emission reduction to aid in meeting new emission targets.
Two galaxies are locked in a deadly embrace in this Hubble Space Telescope image. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, this galactic pair has spent the past few hundred million years sparring. The clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two.
The far-flung stars and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails reminiscent of antennae (not visible in this close-up Hubble view). Clouds of gas blossom out in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially obscured by dark patches of dust.
Hubble’s observations have uncovered over 1,000 bright, young star clusters bursting to life as a result of the head-on wreck. The sweeping spiral-like patterns, traced by bright blue star clusters, shows the result of a firestorm of star-birth activity, which was triggered by the collision. The rate of star formation is so high that the Antennae galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form stars. This cannot last forever, and neither can the separate galaxies; eventually the nuclei will coalesce and the galaxies will begin their retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy.
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From Earth to the Moon: How Are We Getting There?
More than 45 years since humans last set foot on the lunar surface, we’re going back to the Moon and getting ready for Mars. The Artemis program will send the first woman and next man to walk on the surface of the Moon by 2024, establish sustainable lunar exploration and pave the way for future missions deeper into the solar system.
Getting There
Our powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit. The spacecraft is designed to support astronauts traveling hundreds of thousands of miles from home, where getting back to Earth takes days rather hours.
Lunar Outpost
Astronauts will dock Orion at our new lunar outpost that will orbit the Moon called the Gateway. This small spaceship will serve as a temporary home and office for astronauts in orbit between missions to the surface of the Moon. It will provide us and our partners access to the entire surface of the Moon, including places we’ve never been before like the lunar South Pole. Even before our first trip to Mars, astronauts will use the Gateway to train for life far away from Earth, and we will use it to practice moving a spaceship in different orbits in deep space.
Expeditions to the Moon
The crew will board a human landing system docked to the Gateway to take expeditions down to the surface of the Moon. We have proposed using a three-stage landing system, with a transfer vehicle to take crew to low-lunar orbit, a descent element to land safely on the surface, and an ascent element to take them back to the Gateway.
Return to Earth
Astronauts will ultimately return to Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft. Orion will enter the Earth’s atmosphere traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, will slow to 300 mph, then parachutes will deploy to slow the spacecraft to approximately 20 mph before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
Red Planet
We will establish sustainable lunar exploration within the next decade, and from there, we will prepare for our next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars!
Discover more about our plans to go to the Moon and on to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/moontomars
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This gold aluminium cover was designed to protect the Voyager 1 and 2 “Sounds of Earth” gold-plated records from micrometeorite bombardment, but also serves a double purpose in providing the finder a key to playing the record. The explanatory diagram appears on both the inner and outer surfaces of the cover, as the outer diagram will be eroded in time. Flying aboard Voyagers 1 and 2 are identical “golden” records, carrying the story of Earth far into deep space. The 12 inch gold-plated copper discs contain greetings in 60 languages, samples of music from different cultures and eras, and natural and man-made sounds from Earth. They also contain electronic information that an advanced technological civilization could convert into diagrams and photographs. Currently, both Voyager probes are sailing adrift in the black sea of interplanetary space, flying towards the outmost border of our solar system.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Schwann cells are much more prolific in generating myelin than previously believed. Knocking out the fbxw7 gene in mouse models, researchers discovered individual Schwann cells began to spread myelin across many axons.
Atmosphere of Midsize Planet Revealed by Hubble, Spitzer
NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch / NASA - Spitzer Space Telescope patch. July 3, 2019 Two NASA space telescopes have teamed up to identify, for the first time, the detailed chemical “fingerprint” of a planet between the sizes of Earth and Neptune. No planets like this can be found in our own solar system, but they are common around other stars.
Image above: This artist’s illustration shows the theoretical internal structure of the exoplanet GJ 3470 b. It is unlike any planet found in the Solar System. Weighing in at 12.6 Earth masses the planet is more massive than Earth but less massive than Neptune. Unlike Neptune, which is 3 billion miles from the Sun, GJ 3470 b may have formed very close to its red dwarf star as a dry, rocky object. It then gravitationally pulled in hydrogen and helium gas from a circumstellar disk to build up a thick atmosphere. The disk dissipated many billions of years ago, and the planet stopped growing. The bottom illustration shows the disk as the system may have looked long ago. Observation by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have chemically analyzed the composition of GJ 3470 b’s very clear and deep atmosphere, yielding clues to the planet’s origin. Many planets of this mass exist in our galaxy. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, and L. Hustak (STScI). The planet, Gliese 3470 b (also known as GJ 3470 b), may be a cross between Earth and Neptune, with a large rocky core buried under a deep, crushing hydrogen-and-helium atmosphere. Weighing in at 12.6 Earth masses, the planet is more massive than Earth but less massive than Neptune (which is more than 17 Earth masses). Many similar worlds have been discovered by NASA’s Kepler space observatory, whose mission ended in 2018. In fact, 80% of the planets in our galaxy may fall into this mass range. However, astronomers have never been able to understand the chemical nature of such a planet until now, researchers say. By inventorying the contents of GJ 3470 b’s atmosphere, astronomers are able to uncover clues about the planet’s nature and origin. “This is a big discovery from the planet-formation perspective. The planet orbits very close to the star and is far less massive than Jupiter - 318 times Earth’s mass - but has managed to accrete the primordial hydrogen/helium atmosphere that is largely ‘unpolluted’ by heavier elements,” said Björn Benneke of the University of Montreal in Canada. “We don’t have anything like this in the solar system, and that’s what makes it striking.” Astronomers enlisted the combined multi-wavelength capabilities NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to do a first-of-a-kind study of GJ 3470 b’s atmosphere. This was accomplished by measuring the absorption of starlight as the planet passed in front of its star (transit) and the loss of reflected light from the planet as it passed behind the star (eclipse). All told, the space telescopes observed 12 transits and 20 eclipses. The science of analyzing chemical fingerprints based on light is called “spectroscopy.” “For the first time we have a spectroscopic signature of such a world,” said Benneke. But he is at a loss for classification: Should it be called a “super-Earth” or “sub-Neptune?” Or perhaps something else? Fortuitously, the atmosphere of GJ 3470 b turned out to be mostly clear, with only thin hazes, enabling the scientists to probe deep into the atmosphere. “We expected an atmosphere strongly enriched in heavier elements like oxygen and carbon which are forming abundant water vapor and methane gas, similar to what we see on Neptune,” said Benneke. “Instead, we found an atmosphere that is so poor in heavy elements that its composition resembles the hydrogen/helium-rich composition of the Sun.” Other exoplanets, called “hot Jupiters,” are thought to form far from their stars and over time migrate much closer. But this planet seems to have formed just where it is today, said Benneke.
Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Animation Credits: NASA/ESA
The most plausible explanation, according to Benneke, is that GJ 3470 b was born precariously close to its red dwarf star, which is about half the mass of our Sun. He hypothesizes that essentially it started out as a dry rock and rapidly accreted hydrogen from a primordial disk of gas when its star was very young. The disk is called a “protoplanetary disk.” “We’re seeing an object that was able to accrete hydrogen from the protoplanetary disk but didn’t run away to become a hot Jupiter,” said Benneke. “This is an intriguing regime.” One explanation is that the disk dissipated before the planet could bulk up further. “The planet got stuck being a sub-Neptune,” said Benneke. NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be able to probe even deeper into GJ 3470 b’s atmosphere, thanks to Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity in the infrared. The new results have already spawned great interest from American and Canadian teams developing the instruments on Webb. They will observe the transits and eclipses of GJ 3470 b at light wavelengths where the atmospheric hazes become increasingly transparent.
Spitzer Space Telescope. Animation Credit: NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Space operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at IPAC at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information on Hubble, visit: Hubble Space Telescope (HST): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html and https://www.spacetelescope.org/ For more information on Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer and http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/ Image (mentioned), Animations (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Calla Cofield. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article
The visible surface of Jupiter is divided into several bands parallel to the equator. There are two types of bands: lightly colored zones and relatively dark belts.
The difference in the appearance between zones and belts is caused by differences in the opacity of the clouds. Ammonia concentration is higher in zones, which leads to the appearance of denser clouds of ammonia ice at higher altitudes, which in turn leads to their lighter color. On the other hand, in belts clouds are thinner and are located at lower altitudes. The upper troposphere is colder in zones and warmer in belts. The exact nature of chemicals that make Jovian zones and bands so colorful is not known, but they may include complicated compounds of sulfur, phosphorus and carbon.
The Jovian bands are bounded by zonal atmospheric flows (winds), called jets. The eastward (prograde) jets are found at the transition from zones to belts (going away from the equator), whereas westward (retrograde) jets mark the transition from belts to zones. source
Soviet Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev stuck in space during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Unable to return home, he ended up having to stay in space until further notice.
The cosmonaut eventually returned back to earth on March 25, 1992, after 10 months in orbit - to a nation that was very different to what it was when he had left. The Soviet Union had fractured into 15 nations, presidents had changed, and even his hometown of Leningrad had become St. Petersburg.
Interestingly, at the time, Krikalev was supposed to serve in the military reserves, and was almost issued a warrant for desertion – before the army realised that their reserve soldier was not even on the planet.
Source: rbth.com
A two-seater electric plane unveiled in Sion, Switzerland
H55 logo. June 22, 2019 Intended for the training of pilots, the aircraft, presented by André Borschberg, should be at the disposal of the aviation schools from 2021. An electric plane was presented Friday at Sion airport (Switzerland), after making its first successful flight. Intended for pilot training, it should be available to aviation schools by 2021.
Two-seater electric plane H55
The two-seater electric plane sits in a hangar at Sion airport. It offers a zero-emission solution, quiet and economical, said to a hundred people gathered for the occasion, André Borschberg, former CEO and pilot of Solar Impulse and co-founder and president of H55. Manufactured by the Czech company BRM Aero, the device is equipped with an electric propulsion system consisting of a motor and batteries (in the wings) developed by H55. This spin-off of Solar Impulse develops electric motors, batteries, management and control systems and interfaces with the driver. Three former Solar Impulse adventurers, the world’s first solar-powered flight, are at the helm of H55: pilot André Borschberg, electrical engineer Sébastien Demont and economist Gregory Blatt. An hour and a half of endurance The plane last week made its first flight in the skies of the city. By the end of 2020, a pilot project will be conducted with two aviation schools in Switzerland and by 2021 the Bristell Energic should be available to all interested schools, said André Borschberg. The aircraft has an endurance of one hour and a half, for flights of 45 to 60 minutes, which corresponds to the flying schools training program. Overall, the cost of an electric-powered aircraft is lower than that of a gas-powered aircraft, taking into account the purchase price, maintenance and fuel. Engine puncturing For the H55 team, electric aircraft respond to a real need in a society that is increasingly sensitive to the environment and nuisances. It is attracting “considerable interest from aviation academies, airport resident associations and aeronautical authorities”.
Image above: André Borschberg, co-founder and president of H55, in charge of the electric plane presented Friday in a hangar at Sion airport. A member of the team spun the Bristell Energic engine in front of the guests gathered in the hangar: the purr contrasted sharply with the deafening takeoffs and landings heard at the airport on Friday morning. Springboard to flying taxis The H55 aircraft is a springboard for developing new solutions in air transport. “By flying electric planes and analyzing their performance, we are collecting essential data for the development of VTOL (note: vertical takeoff and landing aircraft) and flying taxis,” said André Borschberg. In 2018, H55 raised five million francs to develop its electric propulsion systems. The company benefits from the support of the Confederation of Canton Valais through the foundation The Ark, the city of Sion, but also an investment fund based in Switzerland and Silicon Valley. Related article: A new electric plane will soon be launched in Switzerland https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-new-electric-plane-will-soon-be.html Related links: BRM Aero: https://www.bristell.com/ Solar Impulse: https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/search?q=solar+impulse Images, Text, Credits: ATS/H55/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article
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