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Ralph Milliken: Curiosity’s Mission on Mars

By Guest PostAugust 2, 2012Sciencebrown geologist, chemcam, chemin, curiosity, dan, david orenstein, earth, earth time, gale crater, geology, guadalupe mountains, jpl, mars, mars time, msl, NASA, neutron detector, organic material, plasma, ralph milliken, red planet, rover, rover curiosity, sam, xray diffraction

As Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, gets set to land in the wee hours of Monday morning, Brown geologist Ralph Milliken will be getting ready to get to work. He’s a member of the mission’s science team. His curiosity lies in finding out why Mars is a colder, drier place than it used to be.

PASADENA, Calif. [Brown University] — Ralph Milliken, assistant professor of geological sciences, is on the science team of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which is set to land the rover Curiosity on the Red Planet in the early morning of Aug. 6 Eastern Daylight Time. The rover will allow the team to study the rocks and soils of Gale Crater, giving scientists years of data to help them learn the geological history of the planet. If there are signs of water or organic material, Curiosity can find those, too. (more…)

“Extremely Little” Telescope Discovers Pair of Odd Planets

By Guest PostJune 17, 2012Sciencebinary system, bluish metal, brown dwarf, constellation andromeda, constellation auriga, david salisbury, digital camera, earth, extrasolar planets, failed star, hd 42176, jupiter, kelt 1b, kelt 2ab, kelt north telescope, mercury, osmium, planet, platinum ore, robert siverd, scott gaudi, small telescope, solar system, southern arizona, thomas beatty, transit method, vanderbilt university

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Even small telescopes can make big discoveries.

Though the KELT North telescope in southern Arizona carries a lens no more powerful than a high-end digital camera, it’s just revealed the existence of two very unusual faraway planets.

One planet is a massive, puffed-up oddity that could change ideas of how solar systems evolve. The other orbits a very bright star, and will allow astronomers to make detailed measurements of the atmospheres of these bizarre worlds. (more…)

Resident Evil: Retribution

By Guest PostJune 14, 2012Entertainmentalice, brink of oblivion, clandestine operations, countdown, earth, flesh eating, human race, legions, milla jovovich, moscow, movies, new york, outbreak, resident evil, resident evil 5, retribution, safe haven, shawn Roberts, sienna guillory, t virus, tokyo, umbrella corporation, undead, Washington, Yahoo

Synopsis

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice, awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex. Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun. (more…)

Prometheus

By Guest PostJune 11, 2012Entertainmentcharlize theron, darkest corners, earth, human race, michael fassbender, noomi rapace, origin of mankind, prometheus, prometheus 3d, sci fi, thrilling journey, universe, yahoo movies

Synopsis

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. (more…)

Mapping Volcanic Heat on Io

By Guest PostJune 11, 2012Scienceashley davies, bear fight institute, david williams, dennis matson, earth, erupting volcanoes, europa, floored volcanic craters, galileo mission, glenn veeder, heat flow, hot spots, io, jani radebaugh, journal icarus, jovian moon, life beyond earth, logarithmic scale, map, NASA, paterae, pattern of heat, thermal emission, torrence johnson, volcanic thermal emission, volcanoes

A new study finds that the pattern of heat coming from volcanoes on Io’s surface disposes of the generally-accepted model of internal heating. The heat pouring out of Io’s hundreds of erupting volcanoes indicates a complex, multi-layer source. These results come from data collected by NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes and appear in the June issue of the journal Icarus.

A map of hot spots, classified by the amount of heat being emitted, shows the global distribution and wide range of volcanic activity on Io. Most of Io’s eruptions dwarf their contemporaries on Earth. (more…)

A Prime Seat to a Once-in-a-Lifetime Spectacle

By Guest PostJune 8, 2012Scienceadam block, alan strauss, astrophotographer, black void, digital slr camera, earth, east coast, England, exoplanets, expedition, filaments, Hubble Space Telescope, hydrogen alpha filter, jeremiah horrocks, liverpool, martin hamar, mount lemmon skycenter, much hoole, planet, planet venus, schulman telescope, southern arizona, sun, telescope, transit of venus, ua, venus, venus transit, village

Hosted by world-renowned astrophotographer Adam Block at the UA’s Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, a group of sky and astronomy enthusiasts watched Venus cross the sun from the highest vantage point in Southern Arizona.

On Nov. 24, 1639, in the tiny village of Much Hoole not far from Liverpool, England, a poor farmer’s son and self-taught astronomer affixed a sheet of paper in front of a makeshift telescope pointed at the sun and waited.

Thirty-five minutes before sunset, a dark, round spot appeared right next to the bright disc that was the sun’s face projected on the paper, and made Jeremiah Horrocks, only 20 years old at the time, the first known human to predict, observe and record a transit – the passage of a planet across the sun as seen from Earth.

Almost 373 years later, a group of sky enthusiasts is gathered beneath the dome of one of the University of Arizona’s observatories on Mount Lemmon just north of Tucson, Ariz. (more…)

Clean Energy From CO2?

By Guest PostMay 23, 2012Environmentcarbon dioxide, cpg, crust, cycle, deane morrison, earth, electricity, fossil fuels, geologic formation, geothermal heat, geothermal systems, global warming, green future, heat mining company, hydrofracking, impermeable rock, international space station, jimmy randolph, martin saar, mobility, renewable energy, supercritical, thomas kuehn, underground storage, united states, university of minnesota, villain co2

Global warming villain CO₂ may have a surprisingly green future

The next frontier in the search for renewable energy lies less than two miles from where you are now.

Unless you’re reading this on the International Space Station.

Geothermal heat a mile or two deep in Earth’s crust is a potential source of energy that could be tapped by an unlikely carrier: carbon dioxide (CO₂), the central villain in global warming. That energy, unlike solar and wind, could be easily turned on and off without the intermediate step of being stored in a battery. And it would be constant and reliable. (more…)

UMD Finding May Hold Key to Gaia Theory of Earth as Living Organism

By Guest PostMay 16, 2012Sciencedimethylsulfide emissions, earth, gaia hypothesis, gaia theory, radiation balance, sulfur isotope signatures

Discovery ultimately could lead to better climate understanding and prediction

COLLEGE PARK, Md. Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land — interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory. (more…)

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