Quantum Tech Magazine

Quantum Tech - Vol. 1

Future & Emerging Technology / Science

SEMI-NATURAL BIOTECH HACK MAKES BONES HEAL 3 TIMES FASTER P.4-5

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

ISLANDS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT P.12-13 OUR SUN’S ULTIMATE FATE P.18-19 P.9

01 Quantum Tech magazine volume 1 Future & Emerging Technology / Science

CONTENTS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4-5 - Biotech Hack Mice healed three times faster than normal after their broken bones were flooded by proteins naturally used to regrow new tissues.

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6-8 - Genetic Secrets of living to 100 A massive genetic study of people who lived for more than 100 years has found dozens of new clues to the biology of aging.

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9 - Modern Architecture Many historians relate the origins of this style of architecture to the social and political revolution of the time.

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10-11 - Dark Matter Dark matter collecting inside exoplanets could heat some cold worlds enough to support life.

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12-13 - Islands at the Speed of Light A recent paper published in the Physical Review has some astonishing suggestions for the geographic future of financial markets.

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14-15 - Climate Change in the Cosmic Greenhouse Could cosmic rays be influencing climate by charging up more frequent lightning storms?

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16-17 - Ice Sheet ‘Tipping Point’ The moon is pockmarked with cold, wet oases that could contain enough water ice to be useful to manned missions.

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18-19 - Our Sun’s Ultimate Fate The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests.

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Mice healed three times faster than normal after their “This pathway may be the key to regenerating, broken bones were flooded by proteins naturally used to or at least rapidly repairing, tissues,” regrow new tissues. The discovery raises the possibility of a stem cell–free route to regeneration. The Wnt family of proteins used in the mice are involved in healing many other types of tissue; the researchers hope they will find many other uses for them. “Gut, skin, brain, muscle, cardiac muscle, corneas, retinas — people have studied the role of Wnt signals in all those tissues,” said Stanford University reconstructive surgeon and study co-author Jill Helms. “Maybe there could be a therapeutic approach to all this.”

The experiment, published April 28 in Science Translational Medicine, is rooted in two decades of research on Wnt genes and proteins, which play a variety of regenerative roles. They help embryonic stem cells make copies of themselves, keeping a body’s supply fresh, and guide the maturation of stem cells into specific cell types.

Wnt proteins are found throughout the animal kingdom, from sponges and flatworms to mice and humans, and their function seems to be consistent. When tissues are injured, Wnt genes in surrounding cells become more active, pumping out extra Wnt proteins. Arriving repair cells divide faster and grow more rapidly. Study co-author Roel Nusse, a cell biologist at Stanford, has pioneered much of the Wnt research. He was responsible for cloning the Wnt family genes, allowing proteins to be produced in tissue cultures in a lab. His success encouraged the study’s other authors to see if the proteins could be used therapeutically.

“This pathway may be the key to regenerating, or at least rapidly repairing, tissues,” said Helms. “We’re augmenting nature’s own response to injury.” The researchers started their tests by genetically engineering a strain of mice that produced exceptionally high amounts of Wnt proteins. Three days after their bones were broken, they grew three and half times more new bone tissue than regular mice.

“In cancer, mutations cause the pathway to be always on.

Delivering the protein only causes the pathway to be turned on for a moment,” she said. “Mutations in the insulin pathway also cause cancer, but insulin treatments do not.”

According to Thomas Einhorn, a Boston University biochemist and orthopedic surgeon who wasn’t involved in the study, Wnt is an alluring therapeutic target. Malfunctions in Wnt regulation have been linked to human bone disorders, underscoring their importance. But he cautioned that “animal studies are animal studies, and human conditions are something else.” In mice, challenges still remain. A broken bone is relatively easy to target with an injection, but many conditions are less localized, involving entire organs or large amounts of tissue.

The researchers are now conducing mouse tests of Wnt proteins for skin wounds, stroke and heart-attack recovery, and cartilage injuries. “Nature uses this recipe over and over again,” said Helms.

Image Below: Healing in the skeletal tissues of mice given a placebo (top) and Wnt proteins (bottom).

Science Translational Medicine.

That test’s purpose wasn’t to investigate a role for genetic engineering, but rather to see if extra Wnt had an effect. The researchers next injected lab-grown Wnt proteins into mice with broken bones. These again healed three times faster.

There were no obvious side effects from the treatment, though the tests were preliminary. Somewhat disturbingly, Wnt genes were originally identified while malfunctioning in cancerous cells. The likelihood of causing cancer is also a major obstacle to developing safe stem cell therapies. But Helms is confident that it won’t be a problem with potential Wnt therapies.

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GENETIC SECRETS OF LIVING TO 100 A massive genetic study of people who lived for more than 100 years has found dozens of new clues to the biology of aging.

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The findings won’t be turned overnight into longevity elixirs or lifespan tests, nor do they untangle the complex interactions between biology, lifestyle and environment that ultimately determine how long — and how well — one lives.

They’re also more likely to bounce back from disease, rather than entering a spiral of declining health.

People who’ve reached that mark tend to have lives that are not only exceptionally long, but unusually healthly. Unlike most people, they But they do offer much-needed toeholds for rarely develop diseases of aging — such as scientists studying the basic mechanisms of heart disease, metabolic disease, cancer and dementia — until well into their 90s. They’re also aging, which remain largely unexplained. more likely to bounce back from disease, rather “It shows that genetics plays an extremely than entering a spiral of declining health. important role at these extreme ages. And it begins to be a not-unsolvable puzzle,” said That manner of aging is a goal for most people, Boston University gerontologist Thomas Perls. and a public health necessity. Modern medicine “If we start looking at these genes and what they has had success in slowing individual aging do, we better understand the biology of extreme diseases, but when one is postponed another soon emerges. Americans are living longer but longevity.” not healthier. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. The findings come from gene tests of 801 people health spending now goes to treating diseases enrolled in the Perls-founded New England of aging. That proportion is rising.

Centenarian Study, the largest study in the world In the last decade, scientists using animal of people who’ve lived past 100. models of disease have identified numerous People who’ve reached that mark tend to have genes and biological pathways implicated in lives that are not only exceptionally long, but aging. That animal research is valuable, but the unusually healthly. Unlike most people, they gold standard of longevity science involves longrarely develop diseases of aging — such as heart lived people. disease, metabolic disease, cancer and dementia — until well into their 90s.

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GENETIC SECRETS OF LIVING TO 100 Other studies suggest that whether or not someone lives to their 80s is mostly a result of common-sense lifestyle choices: moderate drinking, no smoking, plenty of exercise, a vegetable-centric diet and low stress. But beyond that, “genetics plays a stronger and stronger role,” said Perls.

The concentrations of telltale gene profiles found by his group suggest “that the genetic influence is very, very strong.”

Perls’ team surveyed the genomes of 801 centenarians, focusing on “hot spots” where people are most likely to have mutations.

They compared the results to genome scans of 926 random people from the general population. From this came a list of 70 gene mutations found mostly in the centenarians.

After comparing those to genome scans of 867 people with Parkinson’s disease, the list was whittled down to 33 key mutations.

The researchers used these results to develop statistical models of longevityassociated gene profiles. Used to evaluate anonymized sample genomes, the model could predict whether the sample came from a centenarian with 77 percent accuracy, underscoring the importance of genetics in extreme long life. Centenarians also tended to fit

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one of 19 different gene profiles. Some of the profiles tracked with especially low rates of cardiovascular disease, dementia and hypertension or diabetes, suggesting specific genetic pathways for those diseases.

of the general population has some of the longevity-associated genes. Yet only one in 6,000 people currently live to be centenarians — many fewer people than seems to be suggested by the genetics.

Some of the discrepancy can likely be attributed to standards of infant care and public health at the beginning of the 20th century, when these centenarians were born, said Perls. Lifestyle and genetics are also sure to play a part. There will also be genetic factors missed by the study’s “We’re quite a ways away still in narrow focus on hot spots. understanding what pathways governed by these genes are involved, and how According to Jackson Laboratory the integration of these genes, not just gerontologist David Harrison, who called with themselves but with environmental the findings “very interesting,” researchers factors, are all playing a role in this will use animals to explore the roles of longevity puzzle,” he said in a press genes and pathways flagged in the study. conference.

The findings will also need to be replicated and expanded in more human studies, said Other were excited about the findings, National Institutes on Aging gerontologist but echoed Perls’ restraint. National Winifred Rossi.

Institutes on Aging neuroscientist Donald Ingram called the study a “very impressive “It’s groundbreaking work,” she said. “But genetic and statistical tour de force,” but science is not fast. It’s slow. It takes a lot of one that leaves environmental influences steps to get to something with an impact. unexplained. According to Perls, one of We’re only at the start of exploring the study’s most intriguing results is that longevity.” roughly 15 percent Perls emphasized that the profiles — which came from Caucasians, and are likely different in other ethnic groups — are not intended as guides for drug cocktails or diagnostic tests.

Modern Architecture

Modern architecture is a style found in the buildings that have simple form without any ornamental structures to them. This style of architecture first came up around 1900. By 1940, modern architecture was identified as an international style and became the dominant way to build for many decades in the 20th century. Modern architects apply scientific and analytical methods to design.

Many historians relate the origins of this style of architecture to the social and political revolution of the time, though others see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments. The availability of new materials such as iron, steel, concrete, and glass brought about new building techniques as part of the industrial revolution. Some regard modern architecture as a reaction against ancient building style. Above all, it is widely accepted as a matter of taste.

For the international style, the most commonly used materials are glass for the facade, steel for exterior support, and concrete for the floors and interior supports.

The floor plans are functional and logical.

But, many people are not fond of the modern style. They find its stark, uncompromisingly rectangular geometrical designs quite inhumane. They think this universal style is sterile, elitist, and lacks meaning.

Modern architecture challenged traditional ideas about the types of structures suitable for architectural design. Only important civic buildings, aristocratic palaces, churches, and public institutions had long been the mainstay of architectural practices.

But, modernist designers argued that architects should design everything that was necessary for society, even the most humble buildings.

Architects began to plan low-cost housing, railroad stations, factories, warehouses, and commercial spaces. In the first half of the 20th century, modern architects produced furniture, textiles, and wallpaper - as well as designing houses - to create a totally designed domestic environment.

The aesthetics used by modern architects celebrated function in all forms of design, from household furnishings to massive ocean liners and new flying machines.

Modern architecture originated in the United States and Europe and spread across the rest of the world. The characteristic features that made modern architecture possible were buildings, stylistic movements, technology, and modern materials.

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Dark matter collecting inside exoplanets could heat some cold worlds enough to support life, even without the warm glow of starlight.

Alien-hunting astronomers generally search for planets that lie just far enough from their stars to keep from boiling off or freezing any liquid water, which is thought to be a prerequisite for carbon-based life. But other heat sources could potentially warm up a chilly planet that is outside this habitable zone.

One possibility is radioactive elements decaying inside rocks, which already give the Earth about 0.025 percent of its geothermal energy. Another is a thick atmosphere to drive a greenhouse effect, which renders Venus an inhospitable hot house. Some have even suggested that planets that have been kicked out of their solar systems could still support life beneath a thick atmosphere or a shell of ice.

In a new paper posted on arXiv.org and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, physicists Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen of Fermilab in Illinois suggest an exotic internal radiator for cold, rocky planets: dark matter. In certain parts of the galaxy, they say, dark matter could effectively outshine the sun.

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“Whenever one weakly interacting massive It’s not something that’s likely to produce a lot of habitable planets,” Hooper said. “But in very special places and in particles meets another, they annihilate each very special models, it could do the trick.” Dark matter other in a burst of energy.” is the name given to the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but generally ignores regular matter. No one knows exactly dark matter is, but one of the most popular theories says it’s made of hypothetical particles called WIMPs — weakly interacting massive particles — that interact with regular matter only through the weak nuclear force and gravity. WIMPs are also their own antiparticles: Whenever one WIMP meets another, they annihilate each other in a burst of energy.

If those explosions happen inside a planet, they could warm the world enough to melt ice, Hooper and Steffen suggest.

Physicists are still waiting for WIMPs to show themselves by colliding with detectors in deep underground mines. But the fact that the detectors haven’t seen anything conclusive yet puts limits on how heavy and large the particles can be. If WIMPs were bigger or heavier than a certain theoretical limit, physicists reason, the particles would have shown up by now.

Hooper and Steffen considered two possible model WIMPs that interact as often as they possibly can while still being consistent with the experiments, one particle that’s 300 times heavier than a proton and one that’s just 7 times the proton’s mass. Then they calculated how much energy the explosions from colliding these hypothetical dark matter particles would contribute to the planet’s overall warmth.

On Earth, they found, dark matter doesn’t make a difference.

Earth lies in a part of the Milky Way where dark matter is relatively thin, so it contributes at most one megawatt of energy to Earth’s internal thermostat. By contrast, the Earth absorbs about 100 petawatts, or 100 quadrillion watts, from the sun.

But in the dark matter-rich centers of galaxies, WIMPs could be a contender. The researchers considered rocky planets that lie within 30 light-years of the galactic center, and found that planets with masses 10 times greater than Earth’s could scoop up enough dark matter to generate 100 petawatts of energy. That could be enough energy to keep liquid water on their surfaces, even without the aid of a nearby star.

She points out that the idea is limited to WIMPs, though — if dark matter turns out to be something else, it won’t work. She also notes that these planets would be too far away for followup observations, a point on which Hooper agrees.

“I don’t foresee any way of detecting such planets any time in the near future,” he said.

If dark matter-heated planets exist, it’s not clear that they would resemble Earth at all. They may not have solid, rocky surfaces for liquid water to pool on, or a molten mantle to drive plate tectonics.

“It’s very possible that this would look like a very different type of planet than the ones we’re used to,” Hooper said.

But dark matter-heated planets have one advantage over planets that are tied to a star. Halos of dark matter can sit undisturbed at the centers of galaxies almost indefinitely, much longer than the lifetimes of individual stars.

“You can imagine planets being heated in this sort of way for literally trillions of years,” Hooper said. “In the far future when all the stars have burnt out in our galaxy, all the surviving civilizations may find themselves migrating to these sorts of planets. They’ll be the ultimate bastion of civilization.”

Image Below: An artist’s rendition of the planetary system around the star 55 Cancri. Credit: NASA/JPL-

“This is a fascinating, and highly original idea,” said exoplanet expert Sara Seager of MIT, who was not involved in the new study.

“Original ideas are becoming more and more rare in exoplanet theory.”

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ISLANDS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT A recent paper published in the Physical Review has some astonishing suggestions for the geographic future of financial markets.

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Its authors, Alexander Wissner-Grossl and Cameron Freer, discuss the spatial implications of speed-of-light trading. Trades now occur so rapidly, they explain, and in such fantastic quantity, that the speed of light itself presents limits to the efficiency of global computerized trading networks. These limits are described as “light propagation delays.”

It is thus in traders’ direct financial interest, they suggest, to install themselves at specific points on the Earth’s surface—a kind of lightspeed financial acupuncture—to take advantage both of the planet’s geometry and of the networks along which trades are ordered and filled. They conclude that “the construction of relativistic statistical arbitrage trading nodes

across the Earth’s surface” is thus economically justified, if not required.

Amazingly, their analysis—seen in the map, below—suggests that many of these financially strategic points are actually out in the middle of nowhere: hundreds of miles offshore in the Indian Ocean, for instance, on the shores of Antarctica,

and scattered throughout the South Pacific (though, of course, most of Europe, Japan, and the U.S. Bos-Wash corridor also make the cut).

These nodes exist in what the authors refer to as “the past light cones” of distant trading centers—thus the paper’s multiple references to relativity. Astonishingly, this thus seems to elide financial trading networks with the laws of physics, implying the eventual emergence of what we might call quantum financial products. Quantum derivatives! (This also seems to push us ever closer to the artificially intelligent financial instruments described in Charles Stross’s novel Accelerando). Erwin Schrödinger meets the Dow. It’s financial science fiction: when the dollar value of a given product depends on its position in a planet’s lightcone.

information, a novel econophysical effect arises wherein the propagation of security pricing information through a chain of such nodes is effectively slowed or stopped.” An econophysical effect.

In the end, then, they more or less explicitly argue for the economic viability of building artificial islands and inhabitable seasteads—i.e. the “construction of relativistic statistical arbitrage

trading nodes”—out in the middle of the ocean somewhere as a way to profit from speed-of-light trades. Imagine, for a moment, the New York Stock Exchange moving out into the mid-Atlantic, somewhere near the Azores, onto a series of New Babylon-like platforms, run not by human traders but by Watson-esque artificially intelligent supercomputers housed in waterproof tombs, all calculating These points scattered along the earth’s money at the speed of light. surface are described as “optimal intermediate locations between trading “In summary,” the authors write, “we have centers,” each site “maximiz[ing] profit demonstrated that light propagation delays potential in a locally auditable manner.” present new opportunities for statistical Wissner-Grossl and Freer then suggest arbitrage at the planetary scale, and that trading centers themselves could be have calculated a representative map of moved to these nodal points: “we show that locations from which to coordinate such if such intermediate coordination nodes are relativistic statistical arbitrage among the themselves promoted to trading centers world’s major securities exchanges. We furthermore have shown that for chains that can utilize local

of trading centers along geodesics, the propagation of tradable information is effectively slowed or stopped by such arbitrage.” Historically, technologies for transportation and communication have resulted in the consolidation of financial markets. For example, in the nineteenth century, more than 200 stock exchanges were formed in the United States, but most were eliminated as the telegraph spread.

The growth of electronic markets has led to further consolidation in recent years. Although there are advantages to centralization for many types of transactions, we have described a type of arbitrage that is just beginning to become relevant, and for which the trend is, surprisingly, in the direction of decentralization. In fact, our calculations suggest that this type of arbitrage may already be technologically feasible for the most distant pairs of exchanges, and may soon be feasible at the fastest relevant time scales for closer pairs.

Our results are both scientifically relevant because they identify an econophysical mechanism by which the propagation of tradable information can be slowed or stopped, and technologically significant, because they motivate the construction of relativistic statistical arbitrage trading nodes across the Earth’s surface.

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Climate Change in the Cosmic Greenhouse Could cosmic rays be influencing climate by charging up more frequent lightning storms?

Several factors influence global climate change.

Long-term influences that work over hundreds of thousands of years have an astronomical origin, namely the eccentricity, axial tilt and precession of the Earth’s orbit. Natural processes on earth, such as volcanic activity and lightning also affect the levels of particulates in the atmosphere and so affect climate. Higher levels of particulates in the atmosphere increase cloud cover, which reduces the amount of energy from sunlight absorbed by the earth’s surface.

Their research suggests that the eleven year solar cycle causes a rise and fall in cosmic rays reaching the earth’s surface and so causes a rise and fall in lightning activity. Less solar activity means higher cosmic rays flux and fewer lightning storms, whereas at times of maximum solar activity there are fewer charged particles in the atmosphere so it is more resistant to the smooth flow of charge and lightning bolts occur as the resistance suddenly breaks down.

However, our burning of fossil fuels at an increasingly high rate is adding the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, at alarming rates. This activity together with human activities that are also raising levels of other greenhouse gases, including methane, are cause for concern and underpin efforts to prevent irreversible climate change.

This lightning effect is in turn affected by the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere, which depends on fossil fuel burning. The team explains that these two confounding factors also influence cloud cover and so depending on the specific point at which we are in the solar cycle the effect of particulates from fossil fuel burning may have a positive or negative effect on storms, cloud cover, and so the earth’s ability to reflect away energy from sunlight.

Heitor Reis and Cláudia Serrano of the Geophysics Centre of Évora, Portugal, point out that another factor must be considered in detailed climate models. They explain that on a shorter timescale, solar activity, which follows an eleven-year cycle, may have a subtle effect not previously recognised.

When solar activity is close to its minimum cosmic rays will increase cloud cover and lightning, which will almost completely cancel out the warming effect of added greenhouse gases at that point in time.

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SEARCH FOR ICE SHEET ‘TIPPING POINT’ A new study examines how ice sheets, such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could become unstable as the world warms.

The team from Oxford University and Cambridge University developed a model to explore how changes in the ‘grounding line’ – where an ice sheet floats free from its base of rock or sediment – could lead to the disintegration of ice sheets and result in a significant rise in global sea level.

A report of their research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. ‘The volume of ice locked up in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is equivalent to a sea level rise of around 3.3 metres,’ said Dr Richard Katz of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, an author of the report. ‘Our model shows how instability in the grounding line, caused by gradual climatic changes, has the potential to reach a ‘tipping point’ where disintegration of the ice sheet could occur.’

At the moment the model – that uniquely takes into account the three dimensional shape of ice sheets – is still fairly simple, but the researchers hope to eventually include more detail on how ice sheets interact with their base slopes and show the behaviour of individual ice streams.

When the team applied their theoretical and mathematical model to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet they found that, contrary to earlier assessments, a scenario which would see instability grow as the grounding line recedes was likely. In the case of the Pine Island Glacier it may already be occurring.

‘Global climate models often assume that, as the world warms, ice sheets will melt at a steady rate, leading to gradual rises in sea level – but ice sheets are much more complex structures than this,’ said Dr Katz. ‘We need to do a lot more work to build better models of how ice sheets behave in the real world. Only then can we start to predict how this behaviour might change in the future as the climate changes.’

A report of the research, ‘Stability of ice sheet grounding lines’, is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. The research was conducted by Dr Richard Katz of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences and Professor M Grae Worster of Cambridge University’s Institute of Theoretical Geophysics.

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OUR SUN’S ULTIMATE FATE Researchers have been focused on a Star, Chi Cygni, it has swollen in size, and is now writhing in its death throes

Throbbing like a heart its days are numbered. This is the eventual fate of our own sun, though this will not be happening for billions of years.

When our Sun begins to die, it will become a red giant as it runs out of hydrogen fuel at its core. Astronomers have a pretty good idea of what will transpire: the sun will swell to a size so large that it will swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Don’t worry, though, this won’t happen for another 5 billion years.

But now, astronomers have been able to watch in detail the death of a sun-like star about 550 light-years from Earth to get a better grasp on what the end might be for our Sun. The star, Chi Cygni, has swollen in size, and is now writhing in its death throes. The star has begun to pulse dramatically in and out, beating like a giant heart. New close-up photos of the surface of this distant star show its throbbing motions in unprecedented detail.

“This work opens a window onto the fate of our Sun five billion years from now, when it will near the end of its life,” said Sylvestre Lacour of the Observatoire de Paris, who led a team of astronomers studying Chi Cygni.

The scientists compared the star to a car running out of gas. The “engine” begins to sputter and pulse. On Chi Cygni, the sputterings show up as a brightening and dimming, caused by the star’s contraction and expansion.

For the first time, astronomers have photographed these dramatic changes in detail. “We have essentially created an animation of a pulsating star using real images,” stated Lacour. “Our observations show that the pulsation is not only radial, but comes with inhomogeneities, like the giant hotspot that appeared at minimum radius.” Stars at this life stage are known as Mira variables.

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As it pulses, the star is puffing off its outer layers, which in a few hundred thousand years will create a beautifully gleaming planetary nebula.

They used the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Infrared Optical Telescope Array, or IOTA, which was located at Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona.

Chi Cygni pulses once every 408 days. At its smallest diameter of 300 million miles, it becomes mottled with brilliant spots as massive plumes of hot plasma roil its surface, like the granules seen on our Sun’s surface, but much larger. As it expands, Chi Cygni cools and dims, growing to a diameter of 480 million miles – large enough to engulf and cook our solar system’s asteroid belt.

“IOTA offered unique capabilities,” said co-author Marc Lacasse of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “It allowed us to see details in the images which are about 15 times smaller than can be resolved in images from the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Imaging variable stars is an extremely difficult task. First, Mira variables hide within a compact and dense shell of dust and molecules. To study the stellar surface within the shell, astronomers need to observe the stars in infrared light, which allows them to see through the shell of molecules and dust, like X-rays enable physicians to see bones within the human body.

Secondly, these stars are very far away, and thus appear very small. Even though they are huge compared to the Sun, the distance makes them appear no larger than a small house on the moon as seen from Earth. Traditional telescopes lack the proper resolution. Consequently, the team turned to a technique called interferometry, which involves combining the light coming from several telescopes to yield resolution equivalent to a telescope as large as the distance between them.

The team also acknowledged the usefulness of the many observations contributed annually by amateur astronomers worldwide, which were provided by the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).

In the forthcoming decade, the prospect of ultra-sharp imaging enabled by interferometry excites astronomers. Objects that, until now, appeared point-like are progressively revealing their true nature. Stellar surfaces, black hole accretion disks, and planet forming regions surrounding newborn stars all used to be understood primarily through models. Interferometry promises to reveal their true identities and, with them, some surprises.

The new observations of Chi Cygni are reported in the December 10 2009 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

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END Quantum Tech magazine volume 1 Future & Emerging Technologies Credits: Images & Photography Alex Lampa Page 8 Photography by Pedro Ribeiro Sim천es

01 Quantum Tech magazine volume 1 Future & Emerging Technology / Science