Science & TechnologyS


Saturn

Saturn's rings and tilt could be the product of an ancient, missing moon

Jennifer Chu
EurekAlert!
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00 UTC
Saturn
© Star Walk 2Planet Saturn and moons
Swirling around the planet's equator, the rings of Saturn are a dead giveaway that the planet is spinning at a tilt. The belted giant rotates at a 26.7-degree angle relative to the plane in which it orbits the sun. Astronomers have long suspected that this tilt comes from gravitational interactions with its neighbor Neptune, as Saturn's tilt precesses, like a spinning top, at nearly the same rate as the orbit of Neptune.

But a new modeling study by astronomers at MIT and elsewhere has found that, while the two planets may have once been in sync, Saturn has since escaped Neptune's pull. What was responsible for this planetary realignment? The team has one meticulously tested hypothesis: a missing moon.

In a study appearing in Science, the team proposes that Saturn, which today hosts 83 moons, once harbored at least one more, an extra satellite that they name Chrysalis. Together with its siblings, the researchers suggest, Chrysalis orbited Saturn for several billion years, pulling and tugging on the planet in a way that kept its tilt, or "obliquity," in resonance with Neptune.

But around 160 million years ago, the team estimates, Chrysalis became unstable and came too close to its planet in a grazing encounter that pulled the satellite apart. The loss of the moon was enough to remove Saturn from Neptune's grasp and leave it with the present-day tilt.

What's more, the researchers surmise, while most of Chrysalis' shattered body may have made impact with Saturn, a fraction of its fragments could have remained suspended in orbit, eventually breaking into small icy chunks to form the planet's signature rings.
Read More...
Tornado2

Four leading Italian scientists say 'climate emergency' NOT supported by data

Chris Morrison
The Daly Sceptic
Wed, 14 Sep 2022 17:19 UTC
Professor Gianluca Alimonti climate change denier
Professor Gianluca Alimonti
Four leading Italian scientists have undertaken a major review of historical climate trends and concluded that declaring a 'climate emergency' is not supported by the data. Reviewing data from a wide range of weather phenomena, they say a 'climate crisis' of the kind people are becoming alarmed about "is not evident yet". The scientists suggest that rather than burdening our children with anxiety about climate change, we should encourage them to think about issues like energy, food and health, and the challenges in each area, with a more "objective and constructive spirit" and not waste limited resources on "costly and ineffective solutions".

During the course of their work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency is stationary in many parts of the world. Tropical hurricanes and cyclones show little change over the long term, and the same is true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity show no "clear positive trend of extreme events". Regarding ecosystems, the scientists note a considerable "greening" of global plant biomass in recent decades caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Satellite data show "greening" trends over most of the planet, increasing food yields and pushing back deserts.

Comment:

Read More...
Mars

NASA finds organic matter in rock samples on Mars

Arin Waichulis
Space Explored
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 14:44 UTC
mars
© NASAEarth seen from Mars. Taken by the Curiosity rover.
Earlier today, NASA briefed the public on the Perseverance rover's current status on Mars, discussed highlights from the mission so far, and announced the discovery of organic molecules that could be associated with life. But this discovery comes with an 82 million-mile caveat.

NASA's Perseverance rover has spent the last year and a half on Mars exploring an ancient lake bed called the Jezero Crater. Percy's primary task is to collect rock-core samples from features within a 28 mile (45 kilometer) wide area long considered by scientists to be a prime location for finding signs of microbial life that may have existed 3.5 billion years ago.

"This mission is not looking for extant life things that are alive today," Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, stated. "Instead, we're looking into the very distant past when Mars climate was very different than it is today, much more conducive to life."

Comment: See also: Did Earth 'Steal' Martian Water?

Read More...
Brain

A good memory or a bad one? One brain molecule decides.

Yasemin Saplakoglu
Quanta Magazine
Wed, 07 Sep 2022 17:16 UTC
memory abstract bridge dream scene graphic
© Jason Lyon for Quanta MagazineWhen memories are encoded as positive or negative experiences, the records are set up in different parts of the brain. Researchers are now learning what determines which way the information goes.
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go.

You're on the vacation of a lifetime in Kenya, traversing the savanna on safari, with the tour guide pointing out elephants to your right and lions to your left. Years later, you walk into a florist's shop in your hometown and smell something like the flowers on the jackalberry trees that dotted the landscape. When you close your eyes, the store disappears and you're back in the Land Rover. Inhaling deeply, you smile at the happy memory.

Now let's rewind. You're on the vacation of a lifetime in Kenya, traversing the savanna on safari, with the tour guide pointing out elephants to your right and lions to your left. From the corner of your eye, you notice a rhino trailing the vehicle. Suddenly, it sprints toward you, and the tour guide is yelling to the driver to hit the gas. With your adrenaline spiking, you think, "This is how I am going to die." Years later, when you walk into a florist's shop, the sweet floral scent makes you shudder.

"Your brain is essentially associating the smell with positive or negative" feelings, said Hao Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. Those feelings aren't just linked to the memory; they are part of it: The brain assigns an emotional "valence" to information as it encodes it, locking in experiences as good or bad memories.
Read More...
Info

Cracks are appearing in Earth's magnetic field as the equinox approaches

Jess Thomson
Newsweek
Tue, 13 Sep 2022 15:07 UTC
Magnetic Field
© ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUSStock image of solar wind hitting the Earth's magnetic field. Due to the alignment of our magnetic field towards the sun at the equinoxes, more solar wind slips through, resulting in more auroras.
So-called cracks in the Earth's magnetic field have led to spectacular aurora light shows being seen in the skies, despite there not having been a solar storm to generate them.

According to spaceweather.com, this is called the Russell-McPherron effect, with cracks in the magnetic field letting more solar wind pass through during the equinoxes, i.e. during the spring and fall equinoxes, where both the day and night are the same length.

"The Rusell-McPherron effect is more of a geometrical effect to do with the orientation of the solar wind's magnetic field and that of the Earth. There is always a cusp or open region of the Earth's magnetic field around the north and south poles so the 'cracks' are permanent," Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist from the British Geological Survey, told Newsweek.

This solar wind is made of plasma that has been ejected from the sun during a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is usually ejected by sunspots, which have particularly strong coronal magnetic fields. Solar winds are constantly flowing past the Earth, however, they are a lot stronger in the aftermath of a CME
Read More...
X

"Nothing to do with man" - Astrophysicist says climate-cultists "are on a gravy train" to make money

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 10 Sep 2022 09:30 UTC
PCorbyn
© Daily ExpressPiers Corbyn, physicist and meteorologist
This year's heat waves and subsequent droughts resulted in the hottest summer in recorded European history, according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) - an EU-funded Earth observation agency.

"We've not only had record August temperatures for Europe, but also for the summer, with the previous summer record only being one year old," said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Of course, this 'record' heat in the summer has prompted activists to trot out the same old tropes that this 'confirms climate change' is having a catastrophic effect on the world already. With the energy crisis facing Europe, this is not a particularly comfortable topic as numerous nations abandon - albeit apparently temporarily - their green policies in favor of not letting their citizenry starve or freeze.

Given that it's all 'settled science', the following RT News anchor was probably expecting a rote response to his questions about climate change. He was in for a big surprise...


Comment: Check this out: Corbyn from 2018



Read More...
Blue Planet

Donkey domestication happened 7,000 years ago in Africa, DNA study reveals


Phys.org
Sat, 10 Sep 2022 12:00 UTC
donkey
A man rides on donkey-cart through a flooded street after heavy monsoon rains in Jacobabad, Pakistan.
Despite transforming history as beasts of burden essential for transporting goods and people, the humble donkey has long been woefully understudied.

But scientists on Thursday took a big step towards clarifying the species' origins with a comprehensive genomic analysis of 238 ancient and modern donkeys, finding they were likely domesticated in a single event in eastern Africa some 7,000 years ago.

The paper, published in the journal Science, was the result of an international collaboration led by Evelyn Todd at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse, France.

Comment: See also: Horses domesticated 4,200 years ago in the steppes of Black Sea region, DNA analysis reveals

Read More...
Magnify

Can myths about dogs give us a clue about their origins?


MindMatters.ai
Sat, 10 Sep 2022 23:07 UTC
Skye Terrier monument
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: Bobby a Skye Terrier monument. A French historian studies the relationship between ancient stories told about dogs and information from genetics and archeology.
Just how and when dogs originated has been the subject of much research. In one account, "Dogs originated from wolves domesticated in Europe, 19,000-32,000 years ago," based on DNA studies (2013). But other research points to many other possibilities: "Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia or Southeast Asia" some time between 10,000 and 38,000 years ago. Some think they were tamed twice.
dog cave sketch
Polychrome tracing by archaeologist Henri Breuil from a
cave painting of a wolf-like canid, Font-de-Gaume cave,
Dordogne, France dated 17,000 years ago.
Historian Julien d'Huy of the College of France in Paris suggests another approach, looking at stories about dogs:
Read More...
Info

Scientists shine light on 66-million-year-old meteorite wildfire mystery


University of Aberdeen
Fri, 09 Sep 2022 21:47 UTC
Impact Study
© compiled by Vellekoop et al(A) location map of the study area. (B) paleogeographic reconstruction of Gulf of Mexico and Baja California Pacific margin taken from Stéphan et al, and Helenes & Carreño, with location of this study, Chicxulub crater, and impact-related slumps, faults, slides, and tsunami deposits.
The meteorite that wiped out Earth's dinosaurs instantly ignited forest wildfires up to thousands of kilometres from its impact zone, scientists have discovered.

The six-mile-wide meteorite struck the Yucatan peninsula in what is now Mexico at the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction that killed off more than 75 percent of living species.

Uncertainty and debate have surrounded the circumstances behind the devastating wildfires known to have been caused by the strike, with several theories as to how and when they started, and their full extent.

By analysing rocks dating to the time of the strike, a team of geoscientists from the UK, Mexico and Brazil has recently discovered that some of the fires broke out within minutes, at most, of the impact, in areas stretching up to 2500km or more from the impact crater.

Wildfires that broke out in coastal areas were short-lived, as the backwash from the mega-tsunami caused by the impact swept charred trees offshore.
Read More...
Info

Artificial ocean cooling to weaken hurricanes is futile, study finds

Annie Reisewitz
University of Miami
Fri, 09 Sep 2022 21:07 UTC
Researchers suggest ocean cooling is an effectively impossible solution to mitigate disasters.
Atlantic Ocean from Space

A new study found that even if we did have the infinite power to artificially cool enough of the oceans to weaken a hurricane, the benefits would be minimal. The study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science showed that the energy alone that is needed to use intervention technology to weaken a hurricane before landfall makes it a highly inefficient solution to mitigate disasters.

"The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall," said the study's lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School. "Plus, weakening the intensity by marginal amounts doesn't necessarily mean that the likelihood for inland damages and safety risks would decrease as well. While any amount of weakening before landfall is a good thing, for these reasons it makes more sense to direct focus towards adaptation strategies such as reinforcing infrastructure, improving the efficiency of evacuation procedures, and advancing the science around detection and prediction of impending storms."

To scientifically answer questions about the effectiveness of artificially cooling the ocean to weaken hurricanes, the authors used a combination of air-sea interaction theories and a highly sophisticated computer model of the atmosphere.
Read More...