Astronomie, Raumfahrt, Space Art & mehr
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181022070106/http://www6.njit.edu/features/innovations/som-mitra.php
NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, and the European Space Agency’s Venus Express recently provided the most detailed multi-point images of the Venusian atmosphere ever seen.
MESSENGER Bids Farewell to Venus
Boston University researchers have published the first clear evidence of how gases from Jupiter’s tiny moon’s volcanoes can lead to the largest visible gas cloud in the solar system.
In 1990, Boston University scientists discovered a large gas cloud of sodium atoms spanning great distances to either side of Jupiter.
http://www.bu.edu/news/2007/07/18/bu-researchers-produce-images-of-gases-escaping-from-jupiters-moon-io/
Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors.
Rise of dinosaurs not so rapid after all
It’s only been a few months since the discovery of ice geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and now astronomers think they’ve found a similar phenomenon on one of the strangest places: welling up from the surface of Pluto’s moon Charon! The discovery was made using the Gemini Observatory’s adaptive optics system from atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The telescope picked out large deposits of ammonia hydrates and water crystals spread out across the surface of the icy moon. Scientists think that water mixing with ice deep underneath Charon’s surface is causing this material to push up through the moon’s ultra-cold surface. This action could be happening quickly, taking just a few hours or even days. Over time, this process could give Charon a new surface one millimetre thick every 100.000 years. Of course, if Charon has this process going on, something similar could be happening across the Kuiper Belt.
Saturn’s moon Iapetus is one of the strangest objects in our Solar System. Unlike other objects of this size, Iapetus is walnut-shaped, with a clearly defined chain of mountains along its equator. How could it have formed billions of years ago with the rest of the Solar System, and yet still have its unique shape? Researchers have developed a computer model that seems to accurately explain the series of events that Iapetus went through to arrive at its current shape. Billions of years ago, shortly after its formation, Iapetus spun quickly, taking just 5 hours to complete a rotation. This fast spin gave it the oblate walnut shape it has today. Over time, its rotation slowed down to about 16 hours. It also cooled down enough that its surface froze solid. It couldn’t absorb the excess surface material. Instead, this rubble built up the chain of mountains around its equator. At this point, its formation completely halted. The moon now orbits at a relatively slow rate, turning only once every 80 days. Scientists were able to confirm these computer model predictions for Iapetus, using observations of its rocks containing the short-lived isotopes aluminum-26 and iron-60. These decay at a rate that allowed scientists to carbon date the moon at roughly 4,564 billion years old.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/saturns-old-moon-iapetus-retains-its-youthful-figure
Preliminary results from DNA tests carried out on a mummy believed to be Queen Hatshepsut is expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are indeed those of Egypt’s most powerful female ruler.
Egyptologists in Cairo announced last month that a tooth found in a wooden box associated with Hatshepsut exactly fitted the jaw socket and broken root of the unidentified mummy. Now, Dr. Angelique Corthals, a biomedical Egyptologist at The University of Manchester, says that DNA tests she helped carry out with colleagues at the National Research Centre in Cairo have promising preliminary results suggesting the mummy is indeed the great queen Hatshepsut.
The team is now planning to carry out more tests on the 40 remaining royal mummies, including that of Tutankhamun, in order to resolve the many questions surrounding the genealogy of the 18th and 19th dynasties.
Manchester University helps with pharaoh DNA analysis
A Cornell study of genome sequences in African-Americans, European-Americans and Chinese suggests that natural selection has caused as much as 10 percent of the human genome to change in some populations in the last 15.000 to 100.000 years, when people began migrating from Africa. For example, the researchers found evidence of recent selection on skin pigmentation genes, providing the genetic data to support theories proposed by anthropologists for decades that as anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa and experienced different climates and sunlight levels, their skin colors adapted to the new environments.
A unique set of observations has allowed astronomers to find direct evidence for the material that surrounded a star before it exploded as a Type Ia supernova. This strongly supports the scenario in which the explosion occurred in a system where a white dwarf is fed by a red giant.
The Gobbling Dwarf that Exploded
Abstract: Detection of Circumstellar Material in a Normal Type Ia Supernova
Channels scoured by ancient outbursts of flood waters are seen in a new orbital view from Odyssey’s Thermal Emission Imaging System:
https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/gallery/martianterrain/aresoutflow.html