EXTANT LIFE ON MARS?
ICY SCIENCE PUBLICATION: WWW.ICYSCIENCE.COM: WINTER 2013/14
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Contact: E: dbood@icyscience.com TWITTER: @DavesAstronomy W: www.icyscience.com
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IN THIS ISSUE 4. IN THE NEWS 8. Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe Part 1 – The Big Bangs’ continued Expansion
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Welcome to the Winter 2014 edition of Icy Science Quarterly E-Magazine. This quarter we have some more interesting articles from the world of science, from life on Mars to the mysteries of the universe. I would like to thank our writers for this edition, Dan Lucas, Ant Ryan and Nicole Willet, all can be follwed via twitter, blogs and their websites. Enjoy.......... Dave B Editor
15. Symmetrical Asymmetry A Universe from Nothingness
WHO’S WHO
8. LIFE ON MARS
EDITOR- Dave Bood WRITERS DAN LUCAS ANT RYAN NICLOSE WILLET
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IN THE NEWSFRO Ebola outbreak: NHS volunteers fly to Sierra Leone
EBOLA CONTINUES TO SPREAD
The first group of NHS volunteers have left for Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus. Around 30 GPs, nurses, psychiatrists and emergency medicine consultants left London Heathrow just after 17:00 GMT, bound for the West African country.
Mali: New Ebola case confirmed, 2 more suspected BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali on Saturday confirmed a new case of Ebola and said two more suspected patients are being tested, raising concern about a further spread of the disease
They will train for a week in the capital Freetown before moving to treatment centres across the country.
which has already killed at least five people in the country.
MORE AT: BBC NEWS
PHILAE COMET LANDER SLEEPING? Philae’s fate remains unknown as it snoozes underneath a cliff on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But in the last few days, its ground crew has released a handful of updates that give us a better idea of what it’s gone through since it left Rosetta for the comet, as well as of its current state. To start with, the team has released a 3D image of the comet’s surface (seen after the break) from two miles above the ground, captured one hour before the intrepid lander was supposed touch down. Philae took the two photos of the original landing site two minutes apart using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS). SOURCE: ENGADGET ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER 2014
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OM THE NET 3D: Printing the Future Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life. The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects, revealing how 3D printers inspire creativity and ground-breaking design. The stories we’ve uncovered focus on the future of industry, medicine and whether 3D printing will change your shopping experience. For example: lighter, more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts – from those already used today, to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpenter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers.
SOURCE: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
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astro nerds free e-magazine out monthly what’s in it monthly guide to the night sky readers images tips and much more...... www.icyscience.com ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER
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Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe Part 1 – The Big Bangs’ continued Expansion For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics. How did it form? What did it form out of? What makes it the way it is today? Is there more out there that we can’t even see? During this series I will look at; the evidence for the Big Bang; the make-up of the Universe; and the role of Dark Energy, in order to determine the inevitable fate of our Universe. Today, the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universe’s beginning. However, there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring the idea of inflation. There is evidence for inflation, but there are a number of models which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe.
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer, Edwin Hubble. His observations led him to realise that there was a continual increase with time, in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one another and from us here on Earth. He also stated that this increase happened at a rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth. Once he realised that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance, Hubble came up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1.) and subsequent Hubble Law. Left: The original Hubble diagram. The relative velocity of galaxies (in km/sec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs; a parsec is 3.26 light years). The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe. (Wascko, M., 2003)
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Although this was the first piece of evidence, the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before, by a man called Christian Doppler.
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you, or away from you. This is due to a change in frequency and wavelength of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves. This was first tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845. Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the Dutch countryside. He then noticed that as the train approached him, the trumpets sounded to be playing at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them. Doppler had suggested that this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving away from you will lengthen, doing the opposite. This change in frequency would cause the sounds given off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you.
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality, which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles, that light in wave form should undergo the same effect as a sound wave. He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars. Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear bluer.
It was soon pointed out however, that the now named Doppler Effect, had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars, that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us.
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong, it was still one of the most important
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discoveries in Physics. It was soon realised that although it wouldn’t affect the colour of a star, it does affect the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth. The effects of absorption and spectral line emission from a star were already known, but in 1868, Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these spectral lines were actually shifted, in some cases to the red end of the spectrum, and in some cases to the blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun. This was interpreted as a Doppler shift, and led Huggins to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us, and in most cases, were moving away.
Between 1919 and 1920, astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects. Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda Nebula. He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum. He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted. Although Slipher was unsure of what these objects actually were, he did know that whatever they were, they were all moving.
At the time, astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter,
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way. Hubble’s calculations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy, is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies throughout the Universe.
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System, but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies appeared to be moving even faster. In 1929, a new idea emerged. Hubble announced that the red shift of a galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us, and so, if you extrapolated this back to the dawn of the Universe, then the Universe appeared to be expanding. This relationship became known as Hubble’s Law, which states that the redshift, and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its distance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added. This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H) and, although initially measured by Hubble at 500 km/s/Mpc, the value is now accepted to be much lower, ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER
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at around 77 km/s/Mpc, with an uncertainty of around 15% as others that have worked on the problem have since discovered.
Twitter: @dan__lucas Science blogger It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two reasons. The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause alterations in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction. The second is establishing accurate distance measurements. Although measuring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way, it still has its problems.
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding, but it also creates another problem. What is the fate of the Universe? Will things just expand so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die, or will the expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself? The answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe.
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Christian Andreas Doppler (/ˈdɒplər/; 29 November 1803 – 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist. He is celebrated for his principle — known as the Doppler effect — that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer. He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
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Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme, likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then entropy increased to the disorder we see today. We need to explain how this could arise from perfection. Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I can’t find the video, but will add to comments below if I do). Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in today’s Universe. Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points. This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live. The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (i.e. after the Big Bang occurred) is this configuration. We already know that Close packing has a density of around 0.74 and the remarkable fact is that two basic configurations give the exact same value. I.e. Cubic and Hexagonal Close Packing. We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers, perhaps an infinite number of points, with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them – never any more than 12. But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first? Both! In fact, necessarily it wouldn’t be in balance unless...... ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER
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‌‌the Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point, into the Close Packing configuration, with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing. Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places, any spatial symmetry and/or asymmetry
would occur at once. For example, with Pi, your telephone number will occur an infinite number of times if you take Pi to enough places. Thus all single points being equivalent to each other, and precisely the same locally to themselves, but as space-time expands, they observe the subtle and increasing differences around them. This also allows large scale homogeneity. Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles).
The Universe would exist as a natural equivalent of nothingness, where entropy increases
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naturally.
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A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points, but with very subtle differences at each place. Initially each point would look one of two ways, but as time passed, each point would become more and more unique. This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be likely too.
ARTICLE ANT RYAN
http://antryanet.blogspot.co.uk/ ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER
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Life on Mars By: Nicole Willett http://www.marssociety.org/ Throughout history, humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths, legends and science fiction stories about civilizations. When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth. The images showed a barren, rocky terrain. For many though, their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in finding life on Mars alive. In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr. Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars. Levin named his experiment Gulliver, but it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment. Viking I and Viking II, which were 4,000 miles away from each other, both carried the LR. A brief summary of the LR is as follows, first a sample of Martian soil is scooped up and sent into a small tube, then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample, and ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER 2014
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if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas. When the LR was performed on the surface of Mars, the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen on the graph indicating a positive result for life. The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the entire seven days it was run. In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA. The control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological. The control had a negative result. Chemistry cannot “die� from an experiment, but biology can. Since the control came back negative and the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars. The LR detected life on Mars according to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA. Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR experiment. Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking. Each one had varying degrees of sensitivity. The LR was the only test that was positive for life, but it was much more sensitive than the others. The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 1/1 x 106 cells in the soil, while the others were orders of magnitude less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR. The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars. So NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet. However, science does not work by consensus.
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Science is supposed to review the results and retest them. That is the scientific method every third grader in America learns. Scientists must retest their experiment to get accurate results. If one out of three tests is positive, then you must rerun the experiment to get an accurate result. What scientists should not do is stop sending life detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results. NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments to Mars since then. That is not science. Each time Levin has proposed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars, he has been denied. NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures. If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976, what is stopping us from looking for life on Mars now? We have learned so much more about the Red Planet since then, it should be a slam dunk to send a life detection device to Mars. Each successive mission to Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things, rocks and water. The Viking missions (1976), the Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover (1997), Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-currently operational), Phoenix Lander (2008), and Curiosity (2012-currently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are water and rocks on Mars. This has taken nearly 40 years to accomplish, even though we acquired that information with the Viking missions. The next rover, with a working name of Mars 2020, is to be very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock samples in. This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
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cheek) will launch it back to Earth, as a sample return, for further study. According to MIT planetary scientist, Dr. Ben Weiss, about one ton per year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth, which over time equals billions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth. He states, as do others, “It is possible we are Martians.” Since that is the case, what is the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time?
This is a perplexing set of facts. So many issues arise with this plan. Such as, contamination upon reentry, time of the cache sitting on the surface of Mars, and lack of foresight and appropriate planning. According to Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society, we get samples of rocks from Mars all the time. We have many meteorites from Mars in labs being studied currently. The mission that should be funded is the Icebreaker Life mission. This mission will have a one meter long drill that will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive evidence of life. (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr. Chris McKay he stated, “We are currently working on the Icebreaker mission and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions. We expect proposals due Dec 2014. We will aim for a 2018 launch.” This is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago. Since the controversial Viking results, many scientific journal articles have been published supporting the results while others have attempted to discredit them. Many new experiments have been developed that have supported the LR positive results. At this point it may be a matter of ICY SCIENCE | QTR 4 WINTER
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what you choose to believe regarding the LR results. However, science is true whether or not you believe it. I believe there is life on Mars. All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist. Mars has ample amounts of water, minerals, and other chemical nutrients in the soil. Habitability has been established and reestablished. The question is, “Do we want to find life on Mars?� It depends who you ask.
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Gillevin.com
NASA
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