Category Archives: Earth Science
How Earth is moving away from the sun
The catastrophe is looming and there is no escape. Our Sun is being consumed slowly, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. At its center are rather violent nuclear fusion processes and talkative and unruly hydrogen nuclei are given hot cakes each other, staying pregnant for a sigh, and calving fast helium nuclei, while casting cries light and heat energy in the form of bright photons traveling slowly to the distant photosphere. Once there, accompanied by jets of other particles less dazzling but more heavy as electrons and protons, which, in turn, form the solar wind, have just over eight minutes to reach our blue planet. Occasionally, our star, perhaps affected by indigestion, gets rid of annoying stuff as violent belching called coronal mass ejections. Moreover, the response of the Earth is gradually away, becoming a little more such acts rude and impolite.
The amount of energy emitted by the sun per unit time is called the luminosity and is due to nuclear fusion processes that take place in the depths of his heart, as I have told poetically in the previous paragraph. To our star, this luminosity amounts to nothing less than 390 quadrillion joules every second. If we use Einstein’s famous equation relating mass and energy, we see easily that an amount of energy as the Sun emits equivalent to a mass loss of 137 billion tons per year, a ridiculous percentage of their mass Overall, about 1980 quadrillion tons.
The creationist argument downsizing the Sun deconstructing
One of the most repeated refrains by some creationists is that which has to do with the age of the Earth. For these creatures with a special understanding of the passages of the Bible, God created our planet for just a few thousand years. To justify his assertion resort to arguments that go against known scientific evidence about the fossil record, and radioactive processes odd. One of the most bizarre, always in my view, is related to the progressive decrease in the size of the Sun, the star that gives us life, thank God.
You see, try to have a look at this article published in 1980 on the website of the Institute for Creation Research. It is concluded that the diameter of our sun is shrinking at a rate of 1.5 meters per hour and, therefore, having remained steady this rate, a little less than 23 million years, the Sun had a radius equal to the orbit of the Earth, i.e. 150 million kilometers. The logical consequence is that our planet could not exist and their age, therefore, cannot be more of those 23 million years. Actually, it should be much lower; as the high temperatures have so close to, the sun would not be suitable for life for much of that time.
Houston: It has a breakthrough
NASA remains committed to extend its scientific discoveries coup media press conference, instead of presenting the first results in peer review journals and, once the scientific community, making statements about it, analyzes them. According to John Grotzinger, a leader of the expedition Curiosity, NASA is about to tell the world about a discovery that “rewrite the history books” (sic). The tentative date for the announcement is December 3 this year.
Sounds great, and since it has sent a ship to Mars, just to make great discoveries, one can only launch the imagination to fly. Moreover, because the imagination journey, the most obvious is that they have discovered life on Mars. In fact Grotzinger words intended just that, we think this discovery and we paste to television the day that some scientist appear before the cameras surrounded by piles of images from NASA logo.
Seeking life beyond Earth (II)
If there were life on other planets, would not seem at all, to what we know. A limitation in fact, makes it extremely difficult to identify. On Mars, however, things could be very different, as the Red Planet is very similar to our life and, if ever there were one, would be very similar to that which surrounds us.
If there were life out there, would resemble that of the Earth?
Not necessarily, Life as we know, that of all the creatures of the Earth is based on carbon and a number of components and rules are always the same, no matter whether bacteria, flies, elephants or humans. Indeed, all life on earth comes from a single common ancestor and distant, a hypothetical organism that scientists call LUCA (Last Common Ancestor Ultimate), which “opened” the way to be alive and to which we must all our features, we are of the species to be. Yet nothing prevents the existence of living beings to follow other rules, or based on other elements other than carbon. What happens is, until now, never found one.
Seeking life beyond Earth
In the coming weeks, probably on December 3, NASA will announce a series of data obtained by the Mars rover Curiosity. Some data that, according to the chief mission scientist John Grotzinger, change the history books. As already published ABC, chances are that the announcement has to do with the discovery of biological material on the Red Planet. Alternatively, even any evidence of the existence of past life on Mars. In these lines, summarize what the expectations of the scientists on this issue and why it would be so important to find a way of life outside our own world.
Can there life beyond Earth?
If only for a simple matter of statistics. There are billions of galaxies in the universe, and each is made up of billions of stars. Many of these stars, like the sun, have planets, which means that the total number of counts per trillion worlds. Simply, it is not logical to think that in the midst of such immensity, life has arisen only on Earth. Doing so would be something like the geocentric conception of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, who thought the Earth Stab fixed in the center of the universe and everything else revolved around it. Science believes that life is out there. Now it comes to find her.
The most distant galaxy in the universe
An international team of astronomers has announced the discovery of what is, so far, the farthest galaxy ever seen by man. In fact, it is the incredible distance of 13,280 million light years. Alternatively, what is the same, only 420 million light years from the time when the Big Bang occurred? The finding, announced by NASA, will be published in December in The Astrophysical Journal. Ever further that seems to be the watchword of the astronomers who study the structure and evolution of the Universe. After the Big Bang, 13,700 million years ago, the area slowly began to come together to form atoms, molecules joined them and later formed the dense clouds of gas are made of stars and galaxies. However, when was that exactly? When they formed the first galaxy? To find out, scientists are sparing no efforts or means.
This time, for example, it was necessary to combine the power of Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes (both of NASA), and then consider the effect of “Gravitational lensing”, i.e., the deflection of light rays suffer during their journey through space as they pass near massive objects (galaxies or quasars as) and are deflected by the force of gravity. The result is a new “record “in the race to find the most distant galaxy in the entire universe. In photography, the new galaxy, much smaller than our Milky Way appears as a simple red speck of just a handful of pixels. However, the definition is not what matters here, but the fact that the image of this galaxy is the portrait of a very different universe we see around us today, one who was barely 3% of its current age. Before reach us, in effect, in light of this new galaxy, called MACS0647-JD, has had to travel for about 13,300 million years, a time (and distance) hard to imagine the human mind.
The diversity of microorganisms is unique Arctic marine
Despite having general extreme changes in solar radiation, slight temperatures and icing in winter, Arctic marine microorganisms and Antarctica have profound differences. This is one of the main findings of an international study involving scientists from the National Research Council (CSIC) also demonstrates the uniqueness of bacterial communities inhabiting the Arctic Ocean, not only compared to the Antarctic, but also with other oceans.
A consortium of researchers from France, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Sweden and Spain has analyzed 800,000 genetic sequences from 90 samples of microorganisms. Specifically, the scientists, who published the results in the journal recorded at the surface and at depth. They have also included 48 additional samples from lower latitudes to analyze the trace polar marine bacterial biogeography of the global ocean.
INDORE POSITIONING SYSTEM (IPS)
The IPS (Indoor Positioning System or indoor location system), the next big thing in the world of location and maps. It’s about creating a positioning system that allows figure out the exact location inside large buildings where there is no GPS satellite signal.
The best example to illustrate the utility is a shopping center where there is not only an ordered distribution of different spaces (shops) but also usually has several plants, also major airports. In the future you can ask the phone how to get from our position at a given gate as today asked for the manager of a restaurant or a store. Google Maps Maps and other services have already begun to catalog these buildings with detailed plans of the interior.
The origin of life
The puzzle elements that gave rise to life is taking shape. Hydrogen sulfide played an important role in chemical reactions precursors to life on Earth and possibly elsewhere over the years in the Solar System. It is one of the main conclusions one article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and is based on a detailed analysis of an experiment conducted in 1958 by chemist Stanley Miller and was not known until now.
Rare Thunderstorm
The “snow storms” are a strange atmospheric phenomenon. Usually occur silently, with soft snowflakes falling, like any other storm. But then unleash powerful and loud thunder unexpectedly. A NASA team has had the “luck” that one of these storms fell on the National Center for Space Science and Technology (NSSTC, for its acronym in English) in which they work and have been studied.