Philae on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: Kudos!

(From European Space Agency, used w/o permission.)
(ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, as Philae lander touched down on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (November 12, 2014))

Those humans had good reason for being cheerful. They were at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany — and were getting 'I'm here' signals from their Philea lander.

Kudos, humanity: one of your robots landed on a comet. Granted — Philae bounced a few times, fetched up, maybe on its on its side, and definitely not where it should be — but it's working, sending back data, and may have enough power in its battery to last until tomorrow afternoon. Maybe longer.

It could have been a lot worse: and is pretty good for a first try.

"...The Key Issue Vexing Controllers..."

(From European Space Agency, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("Some radio data suggests the probe may be about 1km from the intended landing site"
(BBC News))

"Rosetta: Battery will limit life of Philae comet lander"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (November 13, 2014)

"After a historic but awkward comet landing, the robot probe Philae is now stable and sending pictures - but there are concerns about its battery life.

"The lander bounced twice, initially about 1km back out into space, before settling in the shadow of a cliff, 1km from its intended target site.

"It may now be problematic to get enough sunlight to charge its battery systems....

"...Telemetry indicates it is on a slope or perhaps even on its side.

"Certainly, one of its three feet is not in contact with the surface.

"The key issue vexing controllers right now is the lighting conditions.

"Philae is receiving about 1.5 hours of illumination during every 12-hour rotation of the comet.

"This will be insufficient to top up its battery system once the primary charge it had on leaving Rosetta runs out. That was some 60-plus hours...."

The Lemming appreciates that phrase: "...the key issue vexing controllers...."

To "vex" is "to annoy, as with petty importunities."

Sure, Philae may not last as long as mission planners hoped: but it landed, is in one piece, and still on speaking terms with its orbiter. This is pretty much good news.

From what the Lemming's read, nine of 10 experiment packages Philae carries are in good shape: and scientists may even get a chance to use the lander's drill.

Besides, what is it you humans say? "Any landing you walk away from is a good one." Philae has "legs," but couldn't walk anyway: the point is that this robot landed.

Philae didn't crash. It's still got power, and mission planners have most of a day before the batteries run out. Maybe engineers will get the robot right-side-up and in full sunlight before then. Even if they don't, right now it looks like the Rosetta lander will get some serious science done before it's done.

Optimists, Pessimists, and the Lemming

Someone said that an optimist sees a glass that's half-full, a pessimist sees one that's half-empty, and an engineer sees one that's twice as big as it needs to be.

From the Lemming's viewpoint, some news about Philae's landing was written by pessimists who see the glass as half-empty and leaking. Not that BBC piece. Jonathan Amos did okay.

And of course there's the usual kvetching about how many resources were 'wasted' on the Rosetta mission, instead of being spent on the reporter's — or, more likely, editor's — pet peeve.

The Lemming thinks you humans deserve a Lemming's 'thumbs up' for a job well-done, on the Rosetta mission so far. There's more to life than landing on comets, of course: but you've got brains, and in this case you used them.

Slightly-related posts:

• "Robird: False Falcons, Ersatz Eagles, and a Rambling Lemming"
  (September 5, 2014)
• " 'Tampering With Things Man Was Not Supposed to Know:' the Angst Continues"
  (August 1, 2014)
• "The Alchemist Trap"
  (March 14, 2014)
• "Voyager 1: Outward Bound"
  (January 10, 2014)
• " 'Young' Martian Mudstone: Only 80,000,000 Years Old"
  (December 12, 2013)

Fusion Power, Mirrors, and a Rambling Lemming

(From Eric Schulzinger, Lockheed Martin; via Aviation Week & Space Technology; used w/o permission.)
("The CFR test team, led by Thomas McGuire (left), is focusing on plasma containment following successful magnetized ion confinement experiments."
(Aviation Week & Space Technology))

"Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details"
Guy Norris, Aviation Week & Space Technology (October 15, 2014)

"Lockheed Martin aims to develop compact reactor prototype in five years, production unit in 10

"Hidden away in the secret depths of the Skunk Works, a Lockheed Martin research team has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power.

"Dubbed the compact fusion reactor (CFR), the device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being 'compact,' Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refueling—ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.

"Yet the idea of nuclear fusion, in which atoms combine into more stable forms and release excess energy in the process, is not new. Ever since the 1920s, when it was postulated that fusion powers the stars, scientists have struggled to develop a truly practical means of harnessing this form of energy. Other research institutions, laboratories and companies around the world are also pursuing ideas for fusion power, but none have gone beyond the experimental stage. With just such a 'Holy Grail' breakthrough seemingly within its grasp, and to help achieve a potentially paradigm-shifting development in global energy, Lockheed has made public its project with the aim of attracting partners, resources and additional researchers...."

The Lemming started reading about fusion reactors about fifty years ago. At the time, humans said they'd have working fusion power stations in about fifty years. Looks like they'll be about ten years late: not bad, under the circumstances.

Warning! Rambling Lemming Reminiscing

About 94 years back, humans started working out what makes stars like their sun so hot: hydrogen nuclei fusing into helium, releasing energy.

A little later, they discovered that atoms release energy when their nuclei break apart, too: only not as much energy, and it generally won't happen unless you've got a very big nucleus.

Oddly enough, humans developed fission reactors long before coaxing hydrogen nuclei into fusing. Their early reactors were notoriously temperamental.

The trick wasn't to keep the fission reaction going: it was to stop it before it destroyed the reactor. That, and a global war that happened around the same time, may explain why the first 'practical' nuclear device was a bomb. Not, in the Lemming's opinion, a fact that's likely to help humans feel good about nuclear power: and that's not quite another topic.

Roughly 50 years back, humans invented the tokamak, a gadget that generates a doughnut-shaped magnetic field. Deuterium and tritium plasma, held in that field, would fuse into helium: releasing energy.

That's the idea, anyway. One of the problems with a tokamak is that fusion works best under extreme pressure — like in a star's core — and a tokamak starts leaking plasma at fairly low pressure. Still, tokamak reactors looked like the best bet for practical fusion reactors.

Another — it's not so much a problem as an issue — is that the physics involved in a tokamak mean that the things have to be big.

A 35-nation team is building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). When they're done, they'll have the world's biggest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It'll be at the Cadarache research center in southern France.

They're planning to start experiments with it in 2020. Actually, it's next to the Cadarache research center. ITER will be big: 19.4 meters, 64 feet, across by 11.3 meters, 37 feet, high. That photo is of a much smaller tokamak, MIT's Alcator C-Mod.

They Do It With Mirrors: Magnetic Mirrors

Humans have been using magnetic mirrors for some time: mostly for research. In the 1960s, someone got the idea of using magnetic mirrors to hold plasma in a fusion reactor. That's what the Skunk Works team is doing.

Instead of trying to hold plasma in a doughnut-shaped volume, they're using magnetic mirrors to make a vaguely hourglass-shaped volume of plasma. One of the advantages of this shape is that as the plasma tries to expand: the 'bottle' gets stronger.

Lockheed's Skunk Works: Five Prototypes, Then the Production Model

(From Lockheed Martin, via Aviation Week & Space Technology, used w/o permission.)
("Neutrons released from plasma (colored purple) will transfer heat through reactor walls to power turbines."
(Aviation Week & Space Technology ))

"...The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built. However, McGuire expects swift progress. The Skunk Works mind-set and 'the pace that people work at here is ridiculously fast,' he says. 'We would like to get to a prototype in five generations. If we can meet our plan of doing a design-build-test generation every year, that will put us at about five years, and we've already shown we can do that in the lab.' The prototype would demonstrate ignition conditions and the ability to run for upward of 10 sec. in a steady state after the injectors, which will be used to ignite the plasma, are turned off. 'So it wouldn’t be at full power, like a working concept reactor, but basically just showing that all the physics works,' McGuire says.

"An initial production version could follow five years after that. 'That will be a much bigger effort,' he says, suggesting that transition to full-scale manufacturing will necessarily involve materials and heat-transfer specialists as well as gas-turbine makers..."
(Guy Norris, Aviation Week & Space Technology)

The Skunk Works has been around since the 1940s. Someone at Lockheed wondered if maybe engineers might get projects done faster, if they didn't spend most of their time filling out forms: requesting forms they needed for their semi-weekly reports.

Basically, the Sunk Works is run by engineers who get exact specs on what they're expected to produce: and are the sort of folks who keep working at a project. (August 31, 2009)

With any other outfit, the Lemming might think they were overly optimistic. When the Skunk Works says they'll have a production model in a decade: the Lemming's inclined to think they're serious.

The Lemming won't be surprised if tightly-wound humans get conniptions in late 2025 or so, when the first commercial fusion reactors hit the market, and that is another topic.

One Million Years of Singed Fingers

Humans started using fire about 1,000,000 years back. Since then, they're learned to cook without killing themselves, incinerated their cities at irregular intervals, and developed less flammable buildings. (April 9, 2012; A Catholic Citizen in America (April 27, 2014))

The lesson here, in the Lemming's opinion, isn't that fire is bad: it's that fire, string, or any technology can be dangerous.

Humans are clever critters, though. They've managed to use fire, lightning rods, and fission reactors, with only the occasional disaster. The Lemming figures that they'll learn to deal with fusion reactors, too.

On the other hand, some humans can be — surprisingly daft.

Back in 1946, some of them learned why "tickling the dragon's tail" is a bad idea: survivors did learn quite a bit about what extreme radiation levels do to humans, though.

As the Lemming said, any technology can be dangerous. There will be so much energy flowing through a working fusion power plant that 'leaks' could be hazardous.

Sure, eventually humans would run out of seawater: but that'd take a long time. Decades. Centuries. Maybe more. Earth is a very wet place.

Long before there's a 'seawater shortage,' it's the Lemming's guess that humans will have replaced fusion reactors with something else. They're clever that way: and a good thing, too, or they'd have long since run out of flint.

Maybe they'll have worked the bugs out of antimatter reactors, learned how to extract useful levels of energy from phenomena like the Casimir effect, take the "un" out of entropic uncertainty, or discovered some other useful quirk in this universe.

A tip of the Lemming's hat to Jeff Stevens, on Google Plus, for the heads-up on Lockheed's reactor.

More-or-less-related posts:

• "'Tampering With Things Man Was Not Supposed to Know:' the Angst Continues"
  (August 1, 2014)
• "Fusion Power, Terraforming, and Old Dutch Windmills"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 11, 2013)
  Particularly
  • Buck Rogers to Bigelow Aerospace
  • Terraforming and Windmills
  • Fusion Power Plants: Another Step Closer
• "Habitable Worlds, Homer, and Haldane — or — Ganymede's Oceans, and Imagining Kepler-186f's Sunsets"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 9, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Fire, String, and Other Dangerous Technology
• "The Skunk Works: Why Doesn't Everybody Work This Way?"
  (August 31, 2009)
• "Really Hot Fusion: Lawrence Livermore and Star Power"
  (December 28, 2008)

Kulindadromeus Zabaikalicus: A Cute Little Dinosaur

That incredibly cute critter is what Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus might look like: in an Arisa manga comic.

Maybe someone will write the heartwarming tale of a Kulindadromeus — named Kuddly Zeke??

Or maybe not.

Dinosaur Feathers

Until paleontologists found Kulindadromeus, a dinosaur that lived where Siberia is now, scientists knew that some dinosaurs had feathers: but had only found them on theropods.

Scientists are still pretty sure that Coelurosaurs, a particular sort of theropod, are the distant ancestors of birds. Oddly enough, though: theropods have lizard-like hips, or did.

Kulindaromeus is an Ornithischian: one of the 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs. It wasn't, the Lemming understands, just feathers that pegged theropods as the dinosaurs that eventually gave the birdseed industry a reason for existence: and that's another topic.

As far as the Lemming knows, there is no "Sir Richard Owen Zoological gardens." Not yet, anyway. Richard Owen did, however, give Mesozoic reptiles a name: Dinosauria. That was before other scientists realized that they weren't, or weren't quite, reptiles, and that's yet another topic.


(From Chris Masna, via Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol; used w/o permission.)
("Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus reconstruction by Chris Masna, non-threatening occupant of the Sir Richard Owen Zoological Gardens."
(Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol))

And no, to the best of the Lemming's knowledge: nobody has found Kulinda DNA, or grown a live dinosaur. Not yet.

Seriously, Though: That's a Cute Dinosaur

(From Andrey Atuchin, via Deptartment of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol; used w/o permission.)
(Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus in its lakeside environment.)

"Kulindadromeus, the feathered ornithischian
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol

"The first ever example of a plant-eating dinosaur with feathers and scales was reported from Russia in 2014. Previously only flesh-eating dinosaurs were known to have had feathers so this new find indicates that all dinosaurs could have been feathered. This has important implications for our understanding of the biology and success of dinosaurs and for the evolution of bird characters.

"The new dinosaur, named Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, meaning 'Kulinda runner from the Zabaikal region' as it comes from a site called Kulinda on the banks of the Olov River, in Zabaikal District, in Siberia, is described by Godefroit et al. (2014). Kulindadromeus shows epidermal scales on its tail and shins, and short bristles on its head and back. The most astonishing discovery, however, is that it also has complex, compound feathers associated with its arms and legs...."

The Lemming is pretty sure that an American would have written "...the evolution of bird characteristics...," or maybe the University of Bristol folks meant that the cute little ornithischian looks a bit like Tweety and The Road Runner. Then again, maybe not.

Not all scientists are sure that "Kulinda runner from the Zabaikal region" really had feathers. The stuff that apparently kept Kulindadromeus warm isn't shaped like bird feathers. Not the sort birds have these days, anyway.

Maybe the way scientists processed these Kulindadromeus fossils made the feathers look funny, or maybe feathers have changed in the last 150,000,000 years, or maybe some of Earth's critters grow hair or fur, some sprout feathers, and some kept warm with — something else.

If you haven't read enough about dinosaurs and all that yet, there's more:

• "Fishface! Ancient Fish with a Jaw, Cheekbones, and Beady Little Eyes"
  (September 27, 2013)
• "Snakes Don't Have Legs: There's an Explanation For That"
  (February 8, 2011)
• "Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago"
  (December 14, 2010)
• "T. Rex Tail Made For Running, Maybe"
  (November 18, 2010)
• "Dinosaurs, Three Major Asteroid Impacts, and Massive Volcanic Eruptions"
  (August 29, 2010)

"Tampering With Things Man Was Not Supposed to Know:" the Angst Continues

It the Lemming's opinion that humans are curious: some, anyway.

Others seem convinced that "tampering with things man was not supposed to know" will doom them all.

Somehow, though, humans have managed to survive one of Earth's glacial epochs: despite, or perhaps because, some of them wondered if fire might be useful. Eventually, reckless experimentation with sharp sticks led to flint tools and PDAs.

And some humans still seek knowledge: while others fear what the future may bring.

Not-entirely-unrelated posts:

• "Coping With Change for Millions of Years; Chatty Chimps"
  A Catholic Citizen in American (July 11, 2014)
• "Kepler-186f, Sunsets, Tourism, and a Musing Lemming"
  (May 9, 2014)
• "Life in the Universe: Where is Everybody?"
  (March 15, 2013)
• "Another Step Closer to a Practical Warp Drive: Maybe"
  (November 30, 2012)
• " '...If There Were Intelligent Life Up There....' "
  (November 22, 2012)

Kepler-186f, Sunsets, Tourism, and a Musing Lemming

(From UPR at Arecibo, NASA; used w/o permission.)

"How a sunset might look on Earth's new cousin Kepler-186f"
"NASA confirms the discovery of an Earth-sized planet that may have potential for life, but its sun is dimmer than ours. Here's what an evening stroll on a beach on Kepler-186f might be like.
Eric Mack, c|net (April 17, 2014)

"NASA announced Thursday that it has confirmed the first planet beyond our solar system that exists in the habitable zone of its star and is close to the size of Earth, making it the most likely exoplanet yet validated to host life. But the planet, Kepler-186f, orbits an M-class dwarf star and receives only about a third of the energy from its sun that Earth receives from our own beloved fireball.

"That means it could be a frozen, Hoth-like world, or it could be more dry and dead like Mars. But if conditions are right and liquid water exists on Kepler-186f, as NASA thinks it might, it could look more like the above conception, a slightly more chilly version of Earth with shallow oceans...."

Folks at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo's Planetary Habitability Laboratory started with a photo of sunset as seen from a Caribbean beach. A little digital tweaking later, they had what sunset on Kepler-186f would look like: if the planet has an atmosphere and ocean a bit like Earth's.

We don't know if Kepler-186f has an atmosphere, let alone water: but if it does, at least some of the water will probably be liquid.

Sunlight on Kepler-186f's at high noon would be a big like sunlight on Earth an hour before sunset: the climate will be on the nippy side for humans, at best. The sunlight isn't just dimmer: it's redder, too. Or is that more red?

Kepler-186f's star is smaller than Earth's Sol: and it's cooler: about 3,788° Kelvin, compared to Sol's 5,778° Kelvin. That's why Arecibo's simulated sunset looks like one of William Ascroft's Krakatoa sunset sketches.

Looking Ahead: Tourism Destinations in 4814

At the moment, humans must be content with studying Kepler-186f from the Solar system. Keper-186 is nearly 500 light years away: too far for any off-the-shelf transportation system available on Earth.

Humans have, over the last million years, been consistently innovative: and the Lemming sees no sign that this inventive streak has played itself out. It may not be too long before humans travel between stars as routinely as they do between continents today.

If Kepler-186f has an atmosphere, and water, and life: that's a lot of "ifs," but let's suppose that the planet's equatorial zone is warm enough for human comfort.

Kepler-186f is slightly larger than Earth, but not by much. The Lemming made a very rough estimate of Kepler-186f's surface gravity.

With a diameter 1.11 times Earth, Kepler-186f's volume is 1.37 times Earth's, give or take. If it's made of exactly the same mix of rock and metal, it'd be denser: but the Lemming's looking for a rough estimate, so let;s say that it's 1.37 times Earth's mass.

Plugging these numbers into the old g = m/r² equation, where g is surface gravity, m is mass, and r is radius (Earth=1); the Lemming got a surface gravity for Kepler-186f of about 1.11 g. Humans shouldn't find that too uncomfortable.

Someone weighing 150 pounds here would have about 166 pounds pressing on the sands of that hypothetical beach. It'd be like wearing a 16 pound backpack: except that the force would be distributed throughout the body.

Spectacular sunsets, weather on the nippy side but tolerable, far from the hustle and bustle of Earth: the Lemming thinks Kepler-186f has serious potential as a tourist destination.

Ridiculous? maybe. More to the point, today humans can't get there: but 28 centuries back, when Homer's "Odyssey" was new, cruise ships might have seemed just as impossible.

Of course, someone may already be living there: and that's another topic.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Kepler-186f: Facts, Speculation, and the Lemming"
  (April 25, 2014)
• "Life in the Universe: Where is Everybody?"
  (March 15, 2013)
• "Another Step Closer to a Practical Warp Drive: Maybe"
  (November 30, 2012)
• " '...If There Were Intelligent Life Up There....' "
  (November 22, 2012)
• " 'All We Want is Peace and Quiet' - Another Look at the Mind of the Alien"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (December 9, 2009)

The Alchemist Trap

(From "Beschreibung allerfürnemisten mineralischen Ertzt unnd Bergkwercks Arten," via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

That's an alchemist's workshop, in the late 1500s. If some of the equipment looks familiar: you've either been watching old 'mad scientist' movies, or seen a chemical lab.

Quite a lot of a chemist's glassware, like retorts, was standard equipment for European alchemists, back when they still had some credibility.

Then alchemists realized that claiming they could make lead into gold, or preserve an aristocratic lady's youthful looks made getting government grants a lot easier.

As a fundraising strategy, it worked: until enough aristocrats realized that the court alchemist's gold came from the treasury. There's more to researchers calling themselves "chemists" instead of "alchemists," of course: there always is, when humans are involved.

Then there's the story of two enterprising chaps and a clueless emperor, and that's not quite another topic.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Science, Faith, and Albertus Magnus"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 23, 2014)
• "Killer Tomatoes and a Ranting Lemming"
  (August 6, 2013)
• "Lemming Tracks: 'And We're All Gonna Die!' or, not"
  (March 16, 2012)
• "Mineral X From Outer Space!"
  (May 9, 2011)
• "Diane de Poitiers' Elixir of Youth: Side Effects Include Death"
  (December 18, 2009)

Hot News from IceCube - or - A Neutrino Named Ernie

(From IceCube Collaboration, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"This image shows the highest energy neutrino ever observed (1.14 petaelectronvolts), which scientists named 'Ernie,' as seen by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole on Jan. 3, 2012. Image released Nov. 21, 2013."

"Neutrino Detector Finds Elusive Extraterrestrial Particles in 'Major Breakthrough'
Tanya Lewis, Space.com (November 21, 2013)

"For decades, scientists have been searching for ghostly neutrino particles from outer space, and now they have finally found them.

"Using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, researchers found the first evidence of neutrinos from outside the solar system since 1987. The findings open the door for a new era of astronomy that could reveal secrets of the strangest phenomena in the universe, scientists say.

" 'It is a major breakthrough,' said Uli Katz, a particle physicist at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, who was not involved with the research. 'I think it is one of the absolute major discoveries in astro-particle physics,' Katz told SPACE.com...."

First, what this doesn't mean. Ernie the Neutrino isn't going to blow up the sun, find Elvis, or help anyone win the lottery.

Ernie is one of two recent neutrino events. The other one's Bert: and yes, they had Sesame Street in mind. Scientists aren't nearly as heavily-starched about names as they were a century back, about which the Lemming is pleased. Not that the Lemming's preferences are of great import: except to the Lemming, and this is getting off-topic.

Where was the Lemming? Neutrinos. Bert and Ernie. Really cool science. Downright cold, actually, since IceCube is in Antarctica, and that's yet another topic.

The big deal about Ernie and Bert is that they've got more than one petaelectronvolt. A petaelectronvolt is 1,000,000,000,000,000 electronvolts. That number is pronounced "one quadrillion," or "wow, that's a lot of zeroes."

Maybe these overachieving neutrinos are from someone's ham sandwich, but it's much more likely that they're from deep space: the dark abyss between stars.

It's the first time that scientists are pretty sure that they've detected an extrasolar neutrino, and they're excited about it. So is the Lemming.

One of the next steps will be to find out what flavor the neutrinos are. The Lemming likes pistachio and Butter Brickle ice cream, which may or may not be a registered trademark: and has just about nothing to do with neutrinos. The Lemming is still catching up on sleep.

More-or-less-related posts:

• "IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Again"
  (December 28, 2010)
• "Betelgeuse, Stellar Wind, and Exploding Eggs"
  (February 8, 2013)
• "WR 104: Gamma Ray Bursts and a Musing Lemming"
  (January 4, 2013)
• "Vistas in Orion"
  (August 23, 2013)
• "The Neutrinos are Coming! 2012 and Hollywood Science"
  (November 16, 2009)

Holiday-Themed Nebulae: Caldwell 92 and IC 2118

(From NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni, used w/o permission.)

"Witch Head Nebula

"As the name implies, this reflection nebula associated with the star Rigel looks suspiciously like a fairytale crone. Formally known as IC 2118 in the constellation Orion, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from the star. The color of this very blue nebula is caused not only by blue color of its star, but also because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. A similar physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue."

The Witch Head Nebula is either left over from a supernova, or not. Either way, from Earth's angle it looks like the ethically-challenged stepmother in Snow White or Hansel and Gretel, sort of. Some of those tales are downright Grimm.

The way light gets scattered by tiny particles is why Earth's sky and the Witch Head Nebula look blue. It's called Rayleigh scattering, not to be confused with the Raleigh Bicycle Company, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Walter Scott.

Sorry about that. The Lemming's catching up on sleep, or fighting a cold, or in a puckish mood. Oddly, "pawkish" isn't in dictionaries, although the Lemming's seen and heard it used. Definitions aboud for gawkish, hawkish, mawkish, peckish, perkish, rakish, and the aforementioned puckish: but nary a peep about "pawkish."

Somewhere in Earth's sky there must be a nebula that looks like Little Bo Peep or her sheep, and that's another topic.


(From Hubble Space Telescope, NASA, used w/o permission.)

"Hubble Celebrates Its Seventeenth Birthday with the Birth of a Star

"...one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place....

"...The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.

"The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen. Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are nodules of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away by photoionization...."
NASA (March 24, 2007)

Like most other things in the sky, the Carina Nebula has quite a few names and catalog numbers. Depending on who's writing, it's Caldwell 92; or the Eta Carinae Nebula, Grand Nebula, Great Nebula in Carina; or NGC 3372.

A nebula by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet, and the Lemming is not going to go into a Shakespearean frenzy.

Points of interest in the Carina Nebula include the Homunculus Nebula. There we go with a Halloween theme again. Sort of.

The word homunculus first showed up in 16th century alchemical records. These drastically undersized human-like critters are sort of related to the mandrake plant, except they don't really exist. That's the Lemming's story, and he's sticking to it.

Mystic Mountain is another scenic spot in the Carina Nebula, and not to be confused with an amusement park in Jamaica, or a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The latter are both on Earth, which may be obvious. Then again, maybe not.

Related posts:

• "Vistas in Orion"
  (August 23, 2013)
• "Blue Planet, Glass Rain"
  (July 12, 2013)
• "Betelgeuse, Stellar Wind, and Exploding Eggs"
  (February 8, 2013)
• "WR 104: Gamma Ray Bursts and a Musing Lemming"
  (January 4, 2013)
• "Looking Down on the Auroras"
  (June 21, 2010)

Martian Supervolcanoes

(From NASA/MOLA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"Eden Patera is the best example. The irregular-shaped caldera formed when the ground collapsed into the void. The colours here represent elevation in the surrounding terrain. Red is high; blue is low"

"Supervolcanoes ripped up early Mars"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (October 2, 2013)

"Mars may have had giant explosive volcanoes in its ancient past that spewed billions upon billions of tonnes of rock and ash into the sky.

"Vast areas of collapsed ground in a region of the planet called Arabia Terra are their likely remains, believe Joe Michalski and Jacob Bleacher....

Scientists kept finding evidence that really big volcanoes erupted when Mars was young, but hadn't found enough to account for all the ancient ash.

Apparently they were looking for the wrong kind of volcano.

Yellowstone Caldera and Mars

(From NASA/JPL/MSSS, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"An impact crater (L) is usually circular and surrounded by an apron of ejected material. The collapsed calderas of supervolcanoes (R) look very different, with volcanic features such as terracing and pinched rims"

"...They [Michalski and Bleacher] say such supervolcanoes would have had a profound impact on the early evolution of Mars.

"Their gases would have influenced the make-up of the atmosphere and perturbed the climate. And the ashfall would have covered the landscape across great swathes of the planet. It is quite likely some of the deposits the rovers are now encountering on Mars have their origin in colossal blasts...."
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

"Supervolcano" is an unofficial name for volcanoes that blow 1,000 cubic kilometers or more of rock into the air.

One of Earth's better-known supervolcanoes is the one that's powering Yellowstone Park's hot springs and geysers. That one probably has one more eruption coming. Not to worry, though. If the Yellowstone caldera's past eruptions are a guide, humanity probably has another 60,000 years to get ready: more or less.

The Yellowstone caldera doesn't look like a volcano, and neither do the Martian supervolcanoes. Olympus Mons was easy to spot: it's a huge mound with craters on top. What Michalski and Bleacher found look a little like irregular impact craters.

Part of what's different about the possible supervolcanoes on Mars is that, unlike craters left by impacts, they're deep.

If Michalski and Bleacher are right, scientists have part of the explanation for how parts of Mars got covered with so much ash. Understanding how Mars got to be the way it is should help settlers, when humanity gets around to moving outward, and that's another topic.

Related posts:

• "Martian Hood Ornament? Water Faucet? Or Something Entirely Different?"
  (February 15, 2013)
• "Gale Crater, Mars: Like a Hawaiian Beach; Only Drier, Colder, - - -"
  (November 2, 2012)
• "Shifty Surface on Mars?"
  (January 5, 2011)
• "Next Major Taupo Eruption Due - 800 Years Ago?!"
  (July 18, 2010)
• "Volcanoes, a Governor, Science, and the Next Yellowstone Caldera Blowout"
  (February 25, 2009)

Fishface! Ancient Fish with a Jaw, Cheekbones, and Beady Little Eyes

"The earliest known species with what we would recognize as a face was an armored, beady-eyed prehistoric fish."

"First face? Prehistoric fish was a jawdropper"
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, via FoxNews.com (September 25, 2013)

"The earliest known species with what we would recognize as a face was an armored, beady-eyed prehistoric fish, according to a new paper in the journal Nature.

"The fish, entelognathus primordialis (meaning 'primordial complete jaw'), is the oldest known animal to have face-forming jaw and cheek bones comparable to those of today's bony fishes and most terrestrial animals, including us....

"...'Entelognathus had a rather unprepossessing face,' co-author Per Erik Ahlberg of Uppsala University told Discovery News. 'The mouth was wide, the forehead low and flat, and the small, close-set and almost immobile eyes pointed forwards like a pair of car headlights.'..."

The Lemming isn't sure that "primitive" is quite the right term for this piscine prodigy. That jaw was a revolutionary development in fish: and still standard equipment in most land animals that keep their skeleton on the inside. Which is dandy place for it, in the Lemming's opinion.

Sharks definitely aren't primitive, as Friedman points out in the article. Matt Friedman: the Lemming gathers that he does lectures about paleobiology at Oxford. The university, not the town: although Oxford U. is in Oxford, and that's another topic.

Sure, the skeletons of sharks are cartilage, not bone, but those fish are specialized and represent a fairly recent development. "Recent" is in the eye of the beholder, of course. Or Lemming, in this case.

Lampreys and hag-fish: now those things are primitive. Not the current ones so much, but their equally-jawless predecessors back in the good old days when agnatha shared the world with critters that give new meaning to the word "weird."


(D.W. Miller, via the Smithsonian Institution, used w/o permission.)

Of course, if opabinia had kept going for another 500,000,000 years or so, they might be complaining about the younger generation and cost of living: and think critters with only two eyes are weird. And that's another topic. Topics.

Opabina? That's the little critter with five eyes and an improbable-looking mouth-claw-pincer thing sticking out of its front end in that picture.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "Tracing the Y Chromosome, Studying Fossil Proteins, Seeking Truth"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (August 16, 2013)
• "Lowbrow to Highbrow in Four Centuries, Paleolithic Pitchers, and a Fantastic Elastic Echinoderm"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (July 5, 2013)
• "Another 17,000,000 Years on the Coelacanth Timeline"
  (April 16, 2012)
• " 'Nutcracker Man,' Big Teeth, and - - - Grass?!"
  (May 6, 2011)
• "Snakes Don't Have Legs: There's an Explanation For That"
  (February 8, 2011)

(From Chase Studios, via Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, used w/o permission.)

Vistas in Orion

"PIA04215: Horsehead Nebula"
Photojournal, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1999)



"Rising from a sea of dust and gas like a giant seahorse, the Horsehead nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the sky. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took a close-up look at this heavenly icon, revealing the cloud's intricate structure...."

Like the fellow said, "Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel." If Sir William Herschel had been using English at the time, he'd have said "here is truly a hole in the sky." The Lemming found that comment on BBC's website. And no: Sir William Herschel's comment was not made in a blog. The Internet wasn't around in the 18th century, and that's another topic.

The same BBC page says that some folks call the Horsehead Nebula Barnard 33, and that someone took a photo of it at an observatory in Cambridge. Not the one in England: the one in Massachusetts.

Edward Pickering got credit for IC 434, the bright nebula 'around' Barnard 33, AKA the Horsehead Nebula, in 1889. The BBC pointed out that Pickering's assistant, some dude named Flemming, spotted IC 434 and the Horsehead Nebula in 1888.

One more thing: Pickering's a Harvard man, but Harvard College Observatory records, again quoted by the BBC, lists the dark nebula as "discovered by WP Fleming." (Volume 60, dated 1908, on page 149 entry 62)

If the Lemming wore a hat, it'd be tipped to Harvard for giving credit where credit is due.

Hot Winds in Orion

"PIA04227: Orion Nebula and Bow Shock"
Photojournal, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1995)



"Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a bow shock around a very young star in the nearby Orion nebula, an intense star-forming region of gas and dust.

"Named for the crescent-shaped wave a ship makes as it moves through water, a bow shock can form in space when two gas streams collide. In this case, the young star, LL Ori, emits a vigorous wind, a stream of charged particles moving rapidly outward from the star. Our own Sun has a less energetic version of this wind that is responsible for auroral displays on the Earth.

"The material spewed from LL Ori collides with slow-moving gas evaporating away from the center of the Orion nebula, located to the lower right of the image. The surface where the two winds collide is seen as the crescent-shaped bow shock...."

If it seems that a lot of photos taken through telescopes show stuff in the Orion Nebula, you're quite correct. That's because Earth's star is so close to this complex mess of hot and cold running gasses, stars in various stages of formation, and spectacular light shows.

'Close' is a relative term, of course. Light captured in those photos started its journey to Earth more than a dozen centuries back. Most humans probably think of that as a large distance.

By the way, if you're interested in watching the Orion Nebula: don't dawdle. Its supply of gas and dust will run out in about 100,000 years. Oh, wait. That's probably a long time in your frame of reference.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Blue Planet, Glass Rain"
  (July 12, 2013)
• "Betelgeuse, Stellar Wind, and Exploding Eggs"
  (February 8, 2013)
• "WR 104: Gamma Ray Bursts and a Musing Lemming"
  (January 4, 2013)
• "Time, the Universe, and Space Aliens"
  (April 20, 2012)
• "Lemming Tracks: Designing Better Street Lighting"
  (March 21, 2012)

Lemming Tracks: Global Warming Solution: Air Conditioned Parking Lots

Now that global warming has replaced the coming ice age as a looming disaster, humanity awaits the doom and gloom of flooded cities, submerged yacht harbors, and offshore ocean front property.

But fear not! After intense study the Lemming found a solution!

Enclosed, air conditioned parking lots and airports!!

The cost will be enormous, and humans will have to give up air travel - airplanes couldn't land at the roofed-over airports - but perhaps it would be worthwhile. Or maybe not.

Here's what goaded the Lemming into this rant:

"Distorted data? Feds close 600 weather stations amid criticism they're situated to report warming"
Maxim Lott, FoxNews.com (August 13, 2013)

"Data from hundreds of weather stations located around the U.S. appear to show the planet is getting warmer, but some critics say it's the government's books that are getting cooked -- thanks to temperature readings from sweltering parking lots, airports and other locations that distort the true state of the climate.

"Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has closed some 600 out of nearly 9,000 weather stations over the past two years that it has deemed problematic or unnecessary, after a long campaign by one critic highlighting the problem of using unreliable data. The agency says the closures will help improve gathering of weather data, but critics like meterologist [!] and blogger Anthony Watts say it is too little, too late.

" 'The question remains as to why they continue to use a polluted mix of well-sited and poorly-sited stations,' Watts told FoxNews.com...."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) probably set up weather recording stations on or near parking lots and airports for practical reasons. It'd be easier to get at a weather station that's near a parking lot, than one that's not conveniently close to paved roads. Besides, it's a good idea for pilots to know what the weather's like at airports.

Making assumptions about world climate based on data from notoriously sun-baked spots? That might not be the best idea.

'Trust Us'

"...Watts has for years searched for weather stations that have flaws. And he points to a still-open station at Yosemite park as an example of one with 'heat sinks' - objects that store heat, and then release it at night. Heat sinks can cause stations located in or near them to give off useless data -- generally in the form of inflated temperatures not representative of the broader area.

" 'The heat sinks are a road, a building, and stacked metal pipe and beams surrounding the station,' he said.
"After the heat sinks were added at Yosemite, temperature readings show a curious trend: minimum nighttime temperatures increased more than daytime temperatures. Watts says that's because the concrete structures store heat that is released at night, and that such a trend backs up the idea that the 'heat sinks' are having an effect.

"But the government agency that compiles the temperature data says that such concerns are unfounded because of statistical methods used to adjust the data...."

Maybe those "statistical methods used to adjust the data" really are valid. On the other hand, the Lemming has joked about the expert who knows he's right: because it says so in the book he wrote.

Getting a Grip About Climate Change

Some humans know this, but the Lemming will rant anyway: CHANGE HAPPENS!

Water flows. Plants grow: and climate changes. Humans started finding out just how much stuff changes a few hundred years back, and some still don't want to believe it. The Lemming prefers living in the real world, and that's another topic. Topics:

• "Taking Life a Thousand Years at a Time"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 10, 2012)
• " 'In a State of Journeying' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 18, 2012)
• "Climate Changes: So What Else is New?"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 16, 2011)

Some changes are progressive, some run in cycles: like the sun's 22-year sunspot cycle. The sun's magnetic field is decreasing just now, and will go out completely in a few months. Interestingly, the Lemming hasn't read about anybody blaming Big Beach or the other political party.

"Big Beach" is the Lemming's invention, by the way: it's an imaginary cabal or resort owners who force folks into taking vacations.

Back to climate change, the Lemming would be concerned if scientists discovered that for several years the world's weather hadn't been changing at all. That would be weird.

Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years. The Lemming thinks it will continue to do so, no matter where humans put weather stations.

Related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: 'My Mind's Made Up, Don't Confuse Me With the Facts;' and Climate Change"
  (April 5, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: Blasphemy! Or, 'We're All Gonna Die' Predictions That Fizzled "
  (December 30, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Climate Change is the New Global Warming?"
  (December 6, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, and Living Scared"
  (November 19, 2010)
• "Global Warming and Lost Documentation: 'Please Pay No Attention' "
  (December 8, 2009)

The Maastricht Hamburger

A hundred and one years ago a French scientist named Lewis Carrel started growing a chicken heart. Nothing unusual about that, except this bit of chicken meat wasn't inside a chicken.

It was in a laboratory in New York City, run by the Rockefeller Institute. The lab, that is. As far as the Lemming knows the Rockefeller Institute doesn't run New York City.

The Real 'Immortal' Chicken Heart

Ten years later, chickens hatched when Lewis Carrel started his experiment had died of old age: those that hadn't wound up as chicken soup or obscure ingredients in canned food. Carrel's chicken heart kept beating.

Actually, it wasn't a complete chicken heart: but the bit of undying poultry was beating, just as if it was inside a bird. Lewis Carrel wasn't the chap who wrote the Alice books, by the way. That was Lewis Carroll, he was English, his name wasn't Carroll, and that's another topic. Topics.

In 1946, 34 years after it began, folks at the Rockefeller Institute threw the still-living experiment away. Excitement over the prospects of immortality, at least for chicken hearts, faded:

• "Alexis Carrel's Immortal Chick Heart Tissue Cultures (1912-1946)"
  Lijing Jiang, Arizona State University
• "Dr. Carrel's Immortal Cells"
  J. A. Witowski, Medical History, 1M91U, 24:129-142. (1980)
  (from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1082700/pdf/medhist00095-0007.pdf (August 8, 2013))

That's the official story, anyway. Now, in the spirit of 100-proof conspiracy theories, is what the Lemming thinks might have happened.

Good Enough for a Story

Lewis Carrel really is Lewis Carroll. He's a space alien secret agent currently masquerading as an "America's Next Top Model" judge. The immortal chicken heart is still alive, working as a CIA spy but really conspiring to disrupt America's economy by organizing fruit flies in California.

- Or -

The CIA/FBI/Big Oil/Big Peanut/whatever assassinated Lewis Carrel and stole the secret formula that was keeping the chicken heart alive. The Rockefeller Institute threw the immortal chicken heart away because they're part of the conspiracy.

No, the Lemming doesn't believe that. At all. Either of those whoppers might make a good story: maybe along the lines of "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein" or "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"

More of the Lemming's take on conspiracy theories and getting a grip:

• "Planet X, NASA, and the Lizard People From Outer Space"
  (January 2, 2012)
• "How to Not Sound Crazy - or - THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!!!"
  (June 12, 2011)

Return of the Immortal Chicken Heart: Sort Of

Some of their laboratory (pronounced 'lah-bore-ah-tor-ee) equipment might look like props from " 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' Meets 'Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,' " but Mark Post's hamburger special is very real.


(from www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/file?uuid=a5668f05-839f-4007-ae18-29f40d3608a1&owner=c485ea3c-7a41-4eed-b905-19507dc8ee84 (August 8, 2013))
"Electrical stimulation of muscle cells (left panel) matures early muscle cells (middle panel) into mature skeletal muscle which shows typical transverse striations (right panel, arrows) based on abundance of contractile protein units."

Post and two technicians used a few cells, a lot of science and about 250,000 euros - $325,000 - to grow enough "cultured beef" for a hamburger. Food critics said it was a bit lean, but otherwise quite passable.

Don't look for this at the corner grocery any time soon. The $325,000 burger was a prototype, and there's a lot of work left before cultured beef is available commercially.

When, or if, that happens, folks can buy beef that's grown on a tiny fraction of the land, and with fewer resources, than 'real' beef from something with hooves that goes "moo."

Aside from all-too-predictable fussing about technology, science, and "The Island of Lost Souls," the Lemming doesn't see a problem with cultured beef.

Allegedly-related posts:

• " 'A Boy and His Mutant Wolf' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (August 8, 2013)
• "Killer Tomatoes and a Ranting Lemming"
  (August 6, 2013)
• "7,000,000,000 People, More or Less: Why I'm Not Alarmed"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 31, 2011)
• "Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide Now! Or, Not"
  (January 3, 2011)
• "Hard Science Fiction, Cultural Blinders and Laban's Sheep"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (October 29, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Artificial Life Forms - Like Macaroni Wheat

Background:

• "World's first lab-grown burger is eaten in London"
  BBC News (August 5, 2013)
• "First-ever public tasting of lab-grown Cultured Beef burger"
  Research at UM, Maastricht University (August 5, 2013)
  • "Description of 'in vitro meat' project," Project fact sheet Maastricht University
    (from www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/file?uuid=a5668f05-839f-4007-ae18-29f40d3608a1&owner=c485ea3c-7a41-4eed-b905-19507dc8ee84 (August 8, 2013))

Killer Tomatoes and a Ranting Lemming

As anyone who viewed "The Satan Bug" or "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" knows, humanity is ever in peril from the deadly dangers of science and new ideas.

There are days when the Lemming feels like cheering on the tomatoes' side of the stadium.

This, however, is not one of those days.

Instead, the Lemming offers some helpful advice to the more timorous specimens of Homo sapiens sapiens.

Beware! Beware!

Humans have been developing 'genetically modified' plants and animals for a long time. What's different now is that some call the old ones "domesticated," and the new ones "GMO." And, inevitably, are afraid of the new ones.

For the benefit of those who wish to avoid all genetically modified plants, here's a short list of plants that humans have modified:

• Alfalfa
• Almond
• Apple
• Apricot
• Asian Pear
• Azuki Bean
• Banana
• Barley
• Beet
• Blackberry
• Blueberry
• Breadfruit
• Carrot
• Cashew
• Cassava
  • (aka manioc, yuca)
  • (requires special processing to be edible)
• Cherry
• Chestnut
• Chickpea
• Citron
• Clover
• Coconut
• Common Bean
  • (including pinto bean, kidney bean and others)
• Common Medlar
• Cranberry
• Currant
• Durian
• Eggplant (aubergine)
• Ensete
• Fig
• Finger Millet
• Fonio
• Foxtail Millet
• Gourds
• Grape
• Grapefruit
• Hazelnut
• Huckleberry
• Jackfruit
• Lemon
• Lentil
• Lima Bean
• Lime
• Little barley
  • (Hordeum pusillum, central US pre-Columbian)
• Loquat (Japanese medlar)
• Macadamia
• Maize
  • (called corn in the U.S.)
  • Old domesticated plant
    • Found in countless variations throughout the Americas
• Mango
• Maygrass
  • (Phalaris caroliniana, central US pre-Columbian)
• Melon (several species)
• Mung Bean
• Oats
• Olive
• Orange
• Papaya
• Parsnip
• Passionfruit
• Pea
• Peanut
• Pear
• Pearl Millet
  • (predominantly in African cultures, also for beer brewing)
• Pecan
• Peppers
• Pistachio
• Plum
• Pomelo
• Potato
• Proso Millet
• Pumpkin
• Quince
• Radish
• Raspberry
• Rice
• Runner Bean
• Rye
  • (used in Eastern Europe Countries, and for alcoholic beverages)
• Sorghum
• Spelt
• Squash
  • (e.g., Cucurbita pepo, multiple varieties)
• Strawberry
• Summer Squash
• Sweet Potato
• Tangerine
• Taro
  • (requires special processing to be edible)
• Teff -- Ethiopia (also tef)
• Tomato
• Triticale
  • (Secalotriticum spp.)
  • Hybrids between wheat and rye.
• Turnip
• Velvet Bean
• Walnut
• Wheat
• Winter Squash
• Yam
• Zucchini

(Source: "Domesticated Plants," Wikipedia)

Related posts:

• "Mutant Bananas: A Pretty Good Idea, Actually"
  (August 24, 2010)
• "Attack of the Mutant Eucalyptus Trees!"
  (June 13, 2010)
• " 'Artificial' Bacteria, Genetics, the Vatican, and 'Courage With Caution' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 22, 2010)
• "Tofu Turkeys, Genetically Altered Foods, and the Evil Eye"
  (November 14, 2009)
• "Hard Science Fiction, Cultural Blinders and Laban's Sheep"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (October 29, 2009)

Blue Planet, Glass Rain

(NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"This illustration shows HD 189733b, a huge gas giant that orbits very close to its host star HD 189733. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometer-per-hour winds. Image released July 11, 2013...."

"Strange Blue World: Alien Planet's True Color Revealed, a First"
Miriam Kramer, Space.com (July 11, 2013)

" Call it the deep blue dot. For the first time, scientists have seen the visible color of a distant alien world. The exoplanet - called HD 189733b - is 63 light-years from Earth and a 'deep cobalt blue,' with raging storms of glass rain and super-fast winds, scientists say.

"The alien planet's blue color was pinned down using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Although the planet might be the same color as Earth from space, scientists think that HD 189733b is a 'hot Jupiter' - a gas giant planet that orbits very close to its star. It takes 2.2 Earth days for the planet to travel fully around its sun...."

The scientists found HD 189733b's color by tracking colors of the planet and its star. When the hot Jupiter went behind its star, light from the system dropped in the blue end of the spectrum.

Hubble observing leader Frédéric Pont says measuring this exoplanet's color is a "real first."

Blue, Yes: Cool, Yes and No

"...The exoplanet's weather is less than ideal. Its atmosphere is more than 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) and the planet rains glass sideways in 4,350 mile per hour (7,000 km/h) winds, according to Hubble officials...."
(Miriam Kramer, Space.com)

A world where it's hot enough to melt brass is definitely "less than ideal" for critters like humans. Life on Earth is built of nucleic acids and proteins dissolved in water. That may be the only possible chemical brew for life: or not. (March 15, 2013)

Either way, HD 189733b is a satisfactorily odd planet, from the Lemming's point of view: so it's cool, sort of.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Gliese 677C, Revisted: Three Super-Earths in the Habitable Zone"
  (June 28, 2013)
• "Planets, Space-Time Bubbles, and Turtle Shells"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 7, 2013)
• "DNA, Voyager 1, Habitable Worlds, and the Universe"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 22, 2013)
• "Life in the Universe: Where is Everybody?"
  (March 15, 2013)
• "Earth May Not Be a 'Class M' Planet"
  (December 5, 2009)

Another - Thing - From the Burgess Shale

(Marianne Collins, via University of Toronto, used w/o permission)

"University of Toronto/Royal Ontario Museum scientists discover unusual 'tulip' creature"
Kim Luke, U of T News, University of Toronto (January 18, 2012)
"Lived in the ocean more than 500-million years ago

"A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500-million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.

"Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a dinner knife (approximately 20 centimetres) and has a unique filter feeding system.

"Siphusauctum has a long stem, with a calyx - a bulbous cup-like structure - near the top that encloses an unusual filter feeding system and a gut. The animal is thought to have fed by filtering particles from water actively pumped into its calyx through small holes. The stem ends with a small disc which anchored the animal to the seafloor. Siphusauctum lived in large clusters, as indicated by slabs containing over 65 individual specimens...."

These submerged tulip-animal-things were about as long as a butter knife: 8 inches, 20 centimeters.

If the Lemming's going to discuss Siphusauctum gregarium, those critters need a simpler name. How about siphon-sack? Sounds disgusting, maybe greggies? Siphums?

Siphums it is.

More than 1,100 siphums died in a mudslide somewhere between 505,000,000 and 510,000,000 years back. A half-billion years later, they're related to - nothing we know about.

Like other critters caught in the Burgess Shale, siphums were very well preserved: so scientists have a very good picture of how their innards fit together. They may not have had the colors we see in that picture, or maybe they did.

That article says the siphums are tulip-shaped. To the Lemming they look more like bell peppers, not that it really matters.

More Than You Need to Know About an Extinct Animal

"A New Stalked Filter-Feeder from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada"
Lorna J. O'Brien, Jean-Bernard Caron PLOS ONE (January 18, 2012)


(Lorna J. O'Brien, Jean-Bernard Caron, via PLOS ONE, used w/o permission)
"Figure 14. Schematics of the internal anatomy of Siphusauctum gregarium n. gen. and n. sp.

"A, longitudinal-section of the entire animal, with the major features labeled. B, cross-section of the calyx showing hexaradial symmetry. C, longitudinal-section of the calyx, showing raised comb segments above the level of the anus. Abbreviations: A - Anus, BC - Body Cavity, Con - Conical structure, CS - Comb Segments, ES - External Sheath, H - Holdfast, IC - Inner Conical structure with central tube, IS - Inner Stem, LD - Lower Digestive tract, MD - Middle Digestive tract, OS - Outer Stem, SP - Sheath Protrusion, TG - Transverse Groove, UD - Upper Digestive tract...."

If you still need to know more about Burgess Shale and the critters caught in it, the Lemming recommends www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Another 17,000,000 Years on the Coelacanth Timeline"
  (April 16, 2012)
• "Eight-Foot Sea Scorpion: Big Claws; Sharp Spines; Weak; Clumsy"
  (January 4, 2011)
• "Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago"
  (December 14, 2010)
• "Cambrian Explosion Evidence: Burgess Shale Fossils aren't Alone"
  (September 12, 2010)
• "Hurdia Victoria: Cambrian Supercritter of the Burgess Shale"
  (March 20, 2009)

Gliese 677C, Revisted: Three Super-Earths in the Habitable Zone

(ESO/M. Kornmesser, via BBC News, used w/o permission)
"An impression of what the sky might look like from the exoplanet Gliese 667Cd, looking towards the parent star and featuring, at top, the other super-Earths in the habitable zone"

"Star is crowded by super-Earths"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (June 25, 2013)

"Scientists have identified three new planets around a star they already suspected of hosting a trio of worlds.

"It means this relatively nearby star, Gliese 667C, now has three so-called super-Earths orbiting in its 'habitable zone'.

"This is the region where temperatures ought to allow for the possibility of liquid water, although no-one can say for sure what conditions are really like on these planets...."

These planets are more massive than Earth, which might make them better prospects for life than Earth. It looks like plate tectonics, the way Earth's surface keeps getting churned up, or rather down, is really important for making a planet habitable. (December 5, 2009)

Not that astronomers know if there's an atmosphere, let alone water, on any of the three super-Earths circling Gliese 677C. But if there is: there could be life there. Then again, maybe not.

It's the Lemming's considered opinion that humans don't know, yet.

Related posts:

• "Planets, Double Stars, Life: A New Look at the Odds"
  (June 14, 2013)
• "Life in the Universe: Where is Everybody?"
  (March 15, 2013)
• "Alpha Centauri B: New Planet"
  (October 19, 2012)
• "GJ 667Cc: Heavier than Earth, Maybe About as Warm"
  (February 6, 2012)
• "Earth May Not Be a 'Class M' Planet"
  (December 5, 2009)

Planets, Double Stars, Life: A New Look at the Odds

"Tatooine-Like Alien Planets Could Host Life"
Miriam Kramer, Space.com (June 13, 2013)

"Luke Skywalker would be proud. Planets like Skywalker's fictional home of Tatooine in the 'Star Wars' movie series might have more potential for habitability than planets in other systems, research suggests.

"Tatooine's dual suns might actually help prevent damaging solar winds from bombarding planets in their system, allowing for a wider 'Goldilocks zone' of habitability, Joni Clark, an undergraduate at New Mexico State University, said during a poster session at the 222nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society last week.

" '[The stars] calm each other down,' Clark told SPACE.com of her new work that expands on earlier studies examining binaries. 'It's like a really good marriage. They vent to each other, and they're not focused on anything else. They slow each other down and that causes increased magnetic protection of the planets.'..."

Not just any two stars will do. They have to be about the same mass, and be in a tight orbit around each other: circling every 10 to 30 days.

The difference between what we get in the Solar system and the 'Tatooine' stars isn't much. There's probably around a 0.7 percent reduction in what blows out from the stars: that's a difference of seven thousandths.

It's a very slight change, but might let a planet with a weaker magnetic field hold onto its atmosphere longer. Since new information about planets orbiting other stars shows that we've got billions of planets in this galaxy: even a very slight difference in the odds that a planet could support life could mean lots more planets with wet, sticky stuff growing on them.

And that, for the Lemming, is exciting news. Your experience may vary.

Related posts:

• "Life in the Universe: Where is Everybody?"
  (March 15, 2013)
• "Seriously Searching for Life in the Universe"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 8, 2013)
• "Redefining Habitable Zones"
  (February 1, 2013)
• "Earth May Not Be a 'Class M' Planet "
  (December 5, 2009)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)

EEK! Mice With Breakaway Skin!

" 'Scar free healing' in mice may give clues to human skin repair, says study"
James Gallagher, BBC News (September 26, 2012)

"Mice with brittle skin, which tears off in order to escape predators, may offer clues to healing wounds without scarring, according to US researchers.

"Some African spiny mice lost up to 60% of the skin from their backs, says the study published in the journal Nature.

"Unlike wounds in other mammals, the skin then rapidly healed and regrew hairs rather than forming a scar...."

Some critters, like salamanders, can regrow limbs. Mammals regrow scar tissue: handy for quick repairs, not so good as a replacement part. These oddball mice are an exception, at least where skin is involved.

The good news is that scientists may be able to figure out how the African spiny mice grow new skin, and develop ways for mammals to grow other sorts of tissue.

The bad news, sort of, is that someone will probably get upset about the process. Those mice look cute, and might not like losing skin from their backs: which the Lemming is concerned about; but learning how to regrow lost limbs or damaged organs would be nice, too. There's a balance, somewhere, between the welfare of mice and people. There are knee-jerk responses to new ideas, too: and that's another topic.

The Lemming found a rather detailed and boring discussion about the spiny mice on the NIH website:

More:

• "Could animal research lead to 'self-repairing skin'?"
  PubMed Health, U.S. Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (September 27, 2012)

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Mutant Mice Shed Light on Intestinal Bacteria"
  (October 14, 2011)
• " 'Cancer Causes Cell Phones!' - or, not"
  (July 18, 2011)
• "Hands off Driving, Driving With Your Brain, and All That"
  (March 4, 2011)
• "Livestock, Food, and Attack of the Clones"
  (August 7, 2010)
• "Glow-in-the-Dark Flashing Tattoos? Prosthetics With Neural Interfaces? They're Coming"
  (November 20, 2009)

Warp Drive: Silly as Thinking People can Fly

"Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek's FTL Drive May Actually Work"
Jillian Scharr, Space.com (May 14, 2013)

"In the 'Star Trek' TV shows and films, the U.S.S. Enterprise's warp engine allows the ship to move faster than light, an ability that is, as Spock would say, 'highly illogical.'

However, there's a loophole in Einstein's general theory of relativity that could allow a ship to traverse vast distances in less time than it would take light. The trick? It's not the starship that's moving - it's the space around it.

In fact, scientists at NASA are right now working on the first practical field test toward proving the possibility of warp drives and faster-than-light travel. Maybe the warp drive in 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' the franchise's latest film opening this week, is possible after all. [Warp Drive: Can It Be Done? (Video)]..."

NASA working on a warp drive? That's as silly as thinking people could fly - or walk on the moon. Building a spaceship with an Alcubierre-White drive is beyond today's technology.

Building a White-Juday warp field interferometer, which is what NASA may still be working on? That's well within what humans can do, mostly with off-the-shelf hardware.

Tech, Time, and Congress

Maybe it'll take a thousand years for tech to catch up with theoretical physics. Or maybe it's a matter of decades.

If the American Congress decides to save a few dollars by scrapping the White-Juday interferometer project, someone else will almost certainly build pretty much the same equipment. Discussion of Alcubierre's equations started as a global debate, and stayed that way.

It's the Lemming's opinion that today's fast communication gets partial credit - or blame - for the 'blink and you'll miss it' pace of change in technology and science. The Lemming likes the Information Age, some folks don't, and that's another topic.

Lots of "Ifs"

Then there's quantum entanglement. It  may be communication at infinite speed, only happen at about 10,000 times speed of light, or not be inter-particle communication at all.

If quantum entanglement involves signals that travel faster than light, and if the effect can applied to matter as well as information, and if it can be scaled up to include stuff that's big enough: warp drives might not be the fastest way to get from here to there.

And that is definitely another topic. Topics.

Related posts:

• "Quantum Entanglement and a Babbling Lemming"
  (May 3, 2013)
• "Another Step Closer to a Practical Warp Drive: Maybe"
  (November 30, 2012)
• "Antimatter Rocket Motor: Physics, Straightforward; Engineering, Not So Much"
  (October 26, 2012)
• "Time, the Universe, and Space Aliens"
  (April 20, 2012)
  Particularly
  • From Theoretical Physics to Working Spaceships
• "When it's Time to Build Spaceships, People Will Build Spaceships"
  (October 4, 2009)