Science…

Do people find it interesting that Trump is pushing NASA to put men on the next moon orbiter (was going to be unmanned) and seems to buy into that science, but not climate science?

As long as he doesn’t send them to their deaths. America hasn’t lost an astronaut in space. On the way, yes but never in space.

Allegedly, NASA and some intelligence agencies are sending their work to the clouds,as a contingency plan

Aaaaaand so much for not being political in the Science thread. Well done team.

7 Earth-like planets found orbiting star 39 light-years from Earth

'We have made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there,' researcher says By Nicole Mortillaro, CBC News

Scientists have discovered what looks the best place so far where life as we know it may exist outside our own solar system.

Seven Earth-sized planets, all of which could contain water, have been found orbiting a small star 39 light-years away.

“We have made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there,” said Amaury Triaud, co-author of the study. "I don’t think any time before we had the right planets to discover and find out if there was.

“Here, if life managed to thrive … then we will know. Before, it was indication; now, we have the right target.”

The discovery is the first of its kind. Never before have so many Earth-like planets been found orbiting a single star.

Jupiter-sized star

This new system, which orbits a small, ultra-cool star known as TRAPPIST-1, was first discovered in May 2016. At the time, only three planets were confirmed. TRAPPIST is short for Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope.

However, further study revealed four more, all of which are the right size, mass and distance from the sun to hold water. Models reveal that three of the seven have the best chances of containing water.

The star, with a mass that is just eight per cent of our own sun’s, is no bigger than Jupiter, with the planets all orbiting extremely close to the parent star. If they were in our solar system, they would all be within the orbit of Mercury. As a result, there is no chance of direct observation.

Astronomers use several methods to find planets, known as exoplanets, orbiting other stars. One method is by using extremely sensitive equipment that measures the dip in light as a planet crosses in front of the star, known as a transit.

It was this particular method that the astronomers used to study the system. They utilized several ground-based and space telescopes, including the Spitzer Space Telescope, which sees in infrared light, and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The orbits of six of the new planets, which go by the names TRAPPIST-1b to 1h, have all been calculated. Less is known about TRAPPIST-1h, however, as it has only crossed in front of the star once during the 900 hours of observations.

The planets are believed to have formed farther out and then migrated inward, forming a “train of planets,” lead author Michaël Gillon said. They are also all tidally locked, meaning that one side always faces the star, just as one side of our moon always faces Earth.

The planets orbit so closely that if a person were standing on one, they would see planets crossing the sky, sometimes larger than our own moon. To travel between them would take days or weeks, insteadof months and years in our solar system.

And while the star is considerably dimmer than our own sun, we would still be warmed by the infrared heat from the salmon-coloured star.

“It would be a wonderful view on this planet,” Gillon said on Wednesday

The researchers said that the dimness of the TRAPPIST-1 provided a unique opportunity to search for more planets. For the most part, exoplanet research — such as that done by the Kepler Space Telescope — has focused around large, bright stars, mainly because large worlds would be easier to detect as they pass in front of their host star.

But if you’re looking for smaller worlds, a smaller, dimmer star might be a good place to search, the astronomers said.

As for searching for intelligent life in the system, the jury is still out.

The SETI Institute, which searches for signs of intelligent life, turned its Allen Telescope Array to the TRAPPIST-1 system last year. It didn’t find any signal. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance that they might get one.

“I think we’ll do it again, now that there are seven planets,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at SETI. “I think that’s an interesting story because that could indeed be a small little galactic empire right there.”

Even without a signal from this particular system, SETI has been studying these red dwarf stars for some time. There is a project underway to study 20,000 of them within the next two years.

Shostak said the discovery is hopeful.

“It shows that there’s just an awful lot of territory on which you could have life,” Shostak, who was not involved in the study, said. “When you have tens of billions of habitable worlds — moons and planets — just in our galaxy, that’s a stunningly large number of worlds where there could be life. It takes a daring person to say, ‘We’re the only one where anything interesting is happening.’ That’s a bit self-centred, I’d say.”

Continued work

The new findings raises hope that further systems are waiting to be discovered, the researchers say. And it’s something that astronomers and exoplanet hunters are eager to explore.

“We actually have a planetary system with many options to look for signs of water and signs of life. We couldn’t say that before,” exoplanet researcher Sara Seager, who was not associated with the study said.

“And when there’s one, there’s more. In exoplanet research … the hope is that there are more out there just waiting to be found.”

The discovery also allows astronomers to study the atmospheres of these planets, something that the researchers have already begun doing, they say.

They will use Hubble, and later the James Webb telescope which is set to launch next year, to find signs of methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen or ozone, which could indicate that these are truly habitable planets.

Gillon said that it’s an exciting time in planetary research.

“The story is just beginning,” he said.

Finally! Somewhere to escape to :wink:

On a related note finally saw “Arrival” over the weekend. What a great flick as long as one doesn’t over analyze.

NASA discovers sign reading ‘■■■■ off, we’re full’ on earth-sized planets

FEBRUARY 23, 2017

EXCITEMENT following NASA’s discovery of seven ‘earth-sized planets’ circling the dwarf star Trappist 1 has been quelled by the further discovery of a massive sign reading ‘■■■■ off, we’re full’ in a host of intergalactic languages including English and Mandarin.

“While we’re excited at the discovery of not just inhabitable planets but also extra-terrestrial life, we’re shocked and appalled at this blatant display of xenophobia and discrimination,” said an Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI) spokesperson.

“Sure, we might use star formations like the southern cross as our own symbols of intolerant nationalism, but for such prejudice to actually exist out in the cosmos and apply to all of us – not just muslims – offends my sensibilities as a scientist.”

“I’m sure we’d have no problem letting aliens stay here on earth, provided they had the right documentation and after a short period of mandatory detention.”

“That being said, it’s quite admirable to see an entire planet united behind the same message. Maybe one day, 39 light years from now, when we make contact with alien life our whole planet will finally be able to come together, united by fear and hatred and a common desire to tell them to ■■■■ off back to where they came from.”

“There’s hope for humanity yet, even if it lies in intergalactic racism.”

Didn’t read this one but have read a few articles on this. It’s apparently a fairly inactive red dwarf (no Lister jokes please) but I’d be interested to know how inactive it needs to be to not nuke anything on the surface semi-regularly.

urrg… watch a few YouTube vids on todays announcement and get stuck arguing with flat earthers in the comments section.

I should know better.

urrg............. watch a few YouTube vids on todays announcement and get stuck arguing with flat earthers in the comments section.

I should know better.

Are they arguing that the planets are actually ‘disks’, not ‘orbs’?

Saw a great tweet:

Trump becomes president
NASA: ■■■■
a few weeks later
NASA: We’ve found 7 planets, 3 we can live on and there’s enough room for everyone

urrg............. watch a few YouTube vids on todays announcement and get stuck arguing with flat earthers in the comments section.

I should know better.

Are they arguing that the planets are actually ‘disks’, not ‘orbs’?

oh no planets are ‘NASA lies’, we live on a flat earth covered by a firmament, apparently man has never been into space. Usually in the same sentence is ‘NASA lie about everything, the ISS, planets, climate change, aliens’.

urrg............. watch a few YouTube vids on todays announcement and get stuck arguing with flat earthers in the comments section.

I should know better.

Are they arguing that the planets are actually ‘disks’, not ‘orbs’?

oh no planets are ‘NASA lies’, we live on a flat earth covered by a firmament, apparently man has never been into space. Usually in the same sentence is ‘NASA lie about everything, the ISS, planets, climate change, aliens’.

Out of interest, what is their official line on those bright things in the sky?

urrg............. watch a few YouTube vids on todays announcement and get stuck arguing with flat earthers in the comments section.

I should know better.

Are they arguing that the planets are actually ‘disks’, not ‘orbs’?

oh no planets are ‘NASA lies’, we live on a flat earth covered by a firmament, apparently man has never been into space. Usually in the same sentence is ‘NASA lie about everything, the ISS, planets, climate change, aliens’.

Out of interest, what is their official line on those bright things in the sky?

Lies!

No. After all, many Americans believe they themselves have been abducted and anally probed by aliens.

And they and their compatriots have elected the current POTUS.

Light-driven reaction converts carbon dioxide into fuel

Summary:

Researchers have developed tiny nanoparticles that help convert carbon dioxide into methane using only ultraviolet light as an energy source. Having found a catalyst that can do this important chemistry using ultraviolet light, the team now hopes to develop a version that would run on natural sunlight, a potential boon to alternative energy.

FULL STORY

Duke University researchers have engineered rhodium nanoparticles (blue) that can harness the energy in ultraviolet light and use it to catalyze the conversion of carbon dioxide to methane, a key building block for many types of fuels.

Duke University researchers have developed tiny nanoparticles that help convert carbon dioxide into methane using only ultraviolet light as an energy source.

Having found a catalyst that can do this important chemistry using ultraviolet light, the team now hopes to develop a version that would run on natural sunlight, a potential boon to alternative energy.

Chemists have long sought an efficient, light-driven catalyst to power this reaction, which could help reduce the growing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by converting it into methane, a key building block for many types of fuels.

Not only are the rhodium nanoparticles made more efficient when illuminated by light, they have the advantage of strongly favoring the formation of methane rather than an equal mix of methane and undesirable side-products like carbon monoxide. This strong “selectivity” of the light-driven catalysis may also extend to other important chemical reactions, the researchers say.

“The fact that you can use light to influence a specific reaction pathway is very exciting,” said Jie Liu, the George B. Geller professor of chemistry at Duke University. “This discovery will really advance the understanding of catalysis.”

The paper appears online Feb. 23 in Nature Communications.

Despite being one of the rarest elements on Earth, rhodium plays a surprisingly important role in our everyday lives. Small amounts of the silvery grey metal are used to speed up or “catalyze” a number of key industrial processes, including those that make drugs, detergents and nitrogen fertilizer, and they even play a major role breaking down toxic pollutants in the catalytic converters of our cars.

Rhodium accelerates these reactions with an added boost of energy, which usually comes in the form of heat because it is easily produced and absorbed. However, high temperatures also cause problems, like shortened catalyst lifetimes and the unwanted synthesis of undesired products.

In the past two decades, scientists have explored new and useful ways that light can be used to add energy to bits of metal shrunk down to the nanoscale, a field called plasmonics.

“Effectively, plasmonic metal nanoparticles act like little antennas that absorb visible or ultraviolet light very efficiently and can do a number of things like generate strong electric fields,” said Henry Everitt, an adjunct professor of physics at Duke and senior research scientist at the Army’s Aviation and Missile RD&E Center at Redstone Arsenal, AL. “For the last few years there has been a recognition that this property might be applied to catalysis.”

Xiao Zhang, a graduate student in Jie Liu’s lab, synthesized rhodium nanocubes that were the optimal size for absorbing near-ultraviolet light. He then placed small amounts of the charcoal-colored nanoparticles into a reaction chamber and passed mixtures of carbon dioxide and hydrogen through the powdery material.

When Zhang heated the nanoparticles to 300 degrees Celsius, the reaction generated an equal mix of methane and carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas. When he turned off the heat and instead illuminated them with a high-powered ultraviolet LED lamp, Zhang was not only surprised to find that carbon dioxide and hydrogen reacted at room temperature, but that the reaction almost exclusively produced methane.

“We discovered that when we shine light on rhodium nanostructures, we can force the chemical reaction to go in one direction more than another,” Everitt said. “So we get to choose how the reaction goes with light in a way that we can’t do with heat.”

This selectivity – the ability to control the chemical reaction so that it generates the desired product with little or no side-products – is an important factor in determining the cost and feasibility of industrial-scale reactions, Zhang says.

“If the reaction has only 50 percent selectivity, then the cost will be double what it would be if the selectively is nearly 100 percent,” Zhang said. “And if the selectivity is very high, you can also save time and energy by not having to purify the product.”

Now the team plans to test whether their light-powered technique might drive other reactions that are currently catalyzed with heated rhodium metal. By tweaking the size of the rhodium nanoparticles, they also hope to develop a version of the catalyst that is powered by sunlight, creating a solar-powered reaction that could be integrated into renewable energy systems.

“Our discovery of the unique way light can efficiently, selectively influence catalysis came as a result of an on-going collaboration between experimentalists and theorists,” Liu said. “Professor Weitao Yang’s group in the Duke chemistry department provided critical theoretical insights that helped us understand what was happening. This sort of analysis can be applied to many important chemical reactions, and we have only just begun to explore this exciting new approach to catalysis.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by Duke University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Xiao Zhang, Xueqian Li, Du Zhang, Neil Qiang Su, Weitao Yang, Henry O. Everitt, Jie Liu. Product selectivity in plasmonic photocatalysis for carbon dioxide hydrogenation. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 14542 DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS14542

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We are well and truly farked.
Start running.

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I don’t get what’s scary about it. It’s too cool to be scary. Unless skynet is its boss, of course.

That camouflage robot dog from Boston Dynamics scares the crap out of me. Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.

I the clip above, i was kinda cool…till the thing started zipping down stairs and leaping over platforms. fmd…

That camouflage robot dog from Boston Dynamics scares the crap out of me.
Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.

@Riolio Thread title?