Mis Conversaciones Favoritas Son Aquellas Que Se Tienen Con El Lápiz Y El Papel. 

Pulsar planets are planets that are found orbiting pulsars, or rapidly rotating neutron stars. The first such planet to be discovered was around a millisecond pulsar and was the first extrasolar planet to be confirmed as discovered.

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6 Ways NASA Technology Makes You Healthier

An important part of our mission is keeping astronauts strong and healthy during stays in space, but did you know that our technology also helps keep you healthy? And the origins of these space innovations aren’t always what you’d expect.

As we release the latest edition of NASA Spinoff, our yearly publication that celebrates all the ways NASA technology benefits us here on Earth, let’s look at some ways NASA is improving wellness for astronauts—and everyone else.

1.      Weightless weight-lifting

Without gravity to work against, astronauts lose bone and muscle mass in space. To fight it, they work out regularly. But to get them a good burn, we had to get creative. After all, pumping iron doesn’t do much good when the weights float.

The solution? Elastic resistance. Inventor Paul Francis was already working on a portable home gym that relied on spiral-shaped springs made of an elastic material. He thought the same idea would work on the space station and after additional development and extensive testing, we agreed.

Our Interim Resistive Exercise Device launched in 2000 to help keep astronauts fit. And Francis’ original plan took off too. The technology perfected for NASA is at the heart of the Bowflex Revolution as well as a new line of handheld devices called OYO DoubleFlex, both of which enable an intensive—and extensive—workout, right at home.

2.      Polymer coating keeps hearts beating

A key ingredient in a lifesaving treatment for many patients with congestive heart failure is made from a material a NASA researcher stumbled upon while working on a supersonic jet in the 1990s.

Today, a special kind of pacemaker that helps synchronize the left and right sides of the heart utilizes the unique substance known as LaRC-SI. The strong material can be cast extremely thin, which makes it easier to insert in the tightly twisted veins of the heart, and because it insulates so well, the pacemaker’s electric pulses go exactly where they should.

Since it was approved by the FDA in 2009, the device has been implanted hundreds of thousands of times.

 3.  Sutures strong enough for interplanetary transport

Many people mistakenly think we created Teflon. Not true: DuPont invented the unique polymer in 1938. But an innovative new way to use the material was developed to help us transport samples back from Mars and now aids in stitching up surgery patients.

Our scientists would love to get pristine Martian samples into our labs for more advanced testing. One complicating factor? The red dust makes it hard to get a clean seal on the sample container. That means the sample could get contaminated on its way back to Earth.

The team building the cannister had an idea, but they needed a material with very specific properties to make it work. They decided to use Polytetrafluoroethylene (that’s the scientific name for Teflon), which works really well in space.

The material we commonly recognize as Teflon starts as a powder, and to transform it into a nonstick coating, the powder gets processed a certain way. But process it differently, and you can get all kinds of different results.

For our Mars sample return cannister prototype, the powder was compressed at high pressures into a block, which was then forced through an extruder. (Imagine pressing playdough through a mold). It had never been done before, but the end result was durable, flexible and extremely thin: exactly what we needed.

And since the material can be implanted safely in the human body—it was also perfect as super strong sutures for after surgery.

4.      Plant pots that clean the air

It may surprise you, but the most polluted air you breathe is likely the air inside your home and office. That’s especially true these days with energy-efficient insulation: the hot air gets sealed in, but so do any toxins coming off the paint, furniture, cooking gas, etc.

This was a problem NASA began worrying about decades ago, when we started planning for long duration space missions. After all, there’s no environment more insulated than a spaceship flying through the vacuum of space.

On Earth, plants are a big part of the “life support” system cleaning our air, so we wondered if they could do the same indoors or in space.

The results from extensive research surprised us: we learned the most important air scrubbing happens not through a plant’s leaves, but around its roots. And now you can get the cleanest air out of your houseplants by using a special plant pot, available online, developed with that finding in mind: it maximizes air flow through the soil, multiplying the plant’s ability to clean your air.

5.      Gas sensor detects pollution from overhead

Although this next innovation wasn’t created with pollution in mind, it’s now helping keep an eye on one of the biggest greenhouse gasses: methane.

We created this tiny methane “sniffer” to help us look for signs of life on Mars. On Earth, the biggest source of methane is actually bacteria, so when one of our telescopes on the ground caught a glimpse of the gas on Mars, we knew we needed to take a closer look.

We sent this new, extremely sensitive sensor on the Curiosity Rover, but we knew it could also be put to good use here on our home planet.  We adapted it, and today it gets mounted on drones and cars to quickly and accurately detect gas leaks and methane emissions from pipelines, oil wells and more.

The sensor can also be used to better study emissions from swamps and other natural sources, to better understand and perhaps mitigate their effects on climate change.

6.      DNA “paint” highlights cellular damage

There’s been a lot of news lately about DNA editing: can genes be changed safely to make people healthier? Should they be?

As scientists and ethicists tackle these big questions, they need to be sure they know exactly what’s changing in the genome when they use the editing tools that already exist.

Well, thanks to a tool NASA helped create, we can actually highlight any abnormalities in the genetic code with special fluorescent “paint.”

But that’s not all the “paint” can do. We actually created it to better understand any genetic damage our astronauts incurred during their time in space, where radiation levels are far higher than on Earth. Down here, it could help do the same. For example, it can help doctors select the right cancer treatment by identifying the exact mutation in cancer cells.

You can learn more about all these innovations, and dozens more, in the 2019 edition of NASA Spinoff. Read it online or request a limited quantity print copy and we’ll mail it to you!

A high-definition video camera outside the space station captured stark and sobering views of Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm. Image Credit: ESA/NASA–A. Gerst

The scene is a late-spring afternoon in the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. North is toward the top. The length of the dusty whirlwind’s shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) in height. The plume is about 30 yards or meters in diameter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

A false-color image of the Great Red Spot of Jupiterfrom Voyager 1. The white oval storm directly below the Great Red Spot has the approximate diameter of Earth. NASA, Caltech/JPL

The huge storm (great white spot) churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA; Color Composite: Jean-Luc Dauvergne

The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second). This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini’s imaging cameras. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Colorized infrared image of Uranus obtained on August 6, 2014, with adaptive optics on the 10-meter Keck telescope; white spots are large storms. Image credit: Imke de Pater, University of California, Berkeley / Keck Observatory images.

Neptune’s Great Dark Spot, a large anticyclonic storm similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, observed by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989. Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab

This true color image captured by NASA’S Cassini spacecraft before a distant flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan on June 27, 2012, shows a south polar vortex, or a swirling mass of gas around the pole in the atmosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

This artist’s concept shows what the weather might look like on cool star-like bodies known as brown dwarfs. These giant balls of gas start out life like stars, but lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion at their cores, and instead, fade and cool with time.

New research from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that most brown dwarfs are racked with colossal storms akin to Jupiter’s famous “Great Red Spot.” These storms may be marked by fierce winds, and possibly lightning. The turbulent clouds might also rain down molten iron, hot sand or salts – materials thought to make up the cloud layers of brown dwarfs.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Western Ontario/Stony Brook University

In this image, the nightmare world of HD 189733 b is the killer you never see coming. To the human eye, this far-off planet looks bright blue. But any space traveler confusing it with the friendly skies of Earth would be badly mistaken. The weather on this world is deadly. Its winds blow up to 5,400 mph (2 km/s) at seven times the speed of sound, whipping all would-be travelers in a sickening spiral around the planet. And getting caught in the rain on this planet is more than an inconvenience; it’s death by a thousand cuts. This scorching alien world possibly rains glass—sideways—in its howling winds. The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean, as on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Asperitas and Mammatus

Well-defined, wave-like structures in the underside of the cloud; more chaotic and with less horizontal organization than the variety undulatus. Asperitas is characterized by localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points, as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below. Varying levels of illumination and thickness of the cloud can lead to dramatic visual effects.

Occurs mostly with Stratocumulus and Altocumulus

Mammatus is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically cumulonimbus rainclouds, although they may be attached to other classes of parent clouds.

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How Do You Like Your Turkey? Home-Cooked or Rocket-Launched?

It’s Thanksgiving, which means that you’re probably thinking about food right now. And here at NASA, we have to think about food very seriously when we explore space!

Astronauts Need to Eat, Too!

Like for you on Earth, nutrition plays a key role in maintaining the health and optimal performance of the astronauts. The Space Food Systems team is required to meet the nutritional needs of each crew member while adhering to the requirements of limited storage space, limited preparation options, and the difficulties of eating without gravity. 

Good food is necessary being comfortable on a mission a long way from home — especially for crewmembers who are on board for many months at a time. It’s important that the astronauts like the food they’re eating everyday, even given the preparation constraints!

Astronaut Food Has Not Always Been Appetizing

The early space programs were groundbreaking in a lot of ways — but not when it came to food. Like today, crumbs had to be prevented from scattering in microgravity and interfering with the instruments. Mercury astronauts had to endure bite-sized cubes, freeze-dried powders, and semi-liquids stuffed into aluminum tubes. The freeze-dried food were hard to rehydrate, squeezing the tubes was understandable unappetizing, and the food was generally considered to be, like spaceflight, a test of endurance.

However, over the years, packaging improved, which in turn enhanced food quality and choices. The Apollo astronauts were the first to have hot water, which made rehydrating foods easier and improved the food’s taste. And even the Space Shuttle astronauts had opportunities to design their own menus and choose foods commercially available on grocery store shelves. 

 The Wonders of Modern Space Food

Nowadays, astronauts on the International Space Station have the opportunity to sample a variety of foods and beverages prepared by the Space Food Systems team and decide which ones they prefer. They can add water to rehydratable products or eat products that are ready to eat off the shelf.

All the cooking and preparation has been done for them ahead of time because 1) they don’t have room for a kitchen to cook on the space station 2) they don’t have time to cook! The crewmembers are extremely occupied with station maintenance as well as scientific research on board, so meal times have to be streamlined as much as possible. 

Instead of going grocery shopping, bulk overwrap bags (BOBs!) are packed into cargo transfer bags for delivery to the space station. Meal based packaging allows the astronauts to have entrees, side dishes, snacks, and desserts to choose from. 

Taste in Space

The perception of taste changes in space. In microgravity, astronauts experience a fluid shift in their bodies, so the sensation is similar to eating with a headcold. The taste is muted so crewmembers prefer spicy foods or food with condiments to enhance the flavor. 

We Can’t Buy Groceries, But We Can Grow Food!

Growing plants aboard the space station provides a unique opportunity to study how plants adapt to microgravity. Plants may serve as a food source for long term missions, so it’s critical to understand how spaceflight affects plant growth. Plus, having fresh food available in space can have a positive impact on astronauts’ moods!

Since 2002, the Lada greenhouse has been used to perform almost continuous plant growth experiments on the station. We have grown a vast variety of plants, including thale cress, swiss chard, cabbage, lettuce, and mizuna. 

And in 2015, Expedition 44 members became the first American astronauts to eat plants grown in space when they munched on their harvest of Red Romaine. 

Earthlings Can Eat Space Food, Too

To give you a clear idea of how diverse the selection is for astronauts on board the space station, two earthlings gave the astronaut menu a try for a full week. Besides mentioning once that hot sauce was needed, they fared pretty well! (The shrimp cocktail was a favorite.)

Space Technology for Food on Earth

Not only has our space food improved, but so has our ability measure food production on Earth. Weather that is too dry, too wet, too hot, or too cool can strongly affect a farmer’s ability to grow crops. We collaborated with the United States Agency for International Development to create a system for crop yield prediction based on satellite data: the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Early Warning.

This map measures the health, or “greenness” of vegetation based on how much red or near-infrared light the leaves reflect. Healthy vegetation reflects more infrared light and less visible light than stressed vegetation. As you can see from the map, a severe drought spread across southern Mexico to Panama in June to August of this year. 

The Crop Monitor compiles different types of crop condition indicators — such as temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture — and shares them with 14 national and international partners to inform relief efforts.

Thanksgiving in Space 

Space food has certainly come a long way from semi-liquids squeezed into aluminum tubes! This year, Expedition 57 crewmembers Commander Alexander Gerst and Flight Engineer Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor are looking forward to enjoying a Thanksgiving meal that probably sounds pretty familiar to you: turkey, stuffing, candied yams, and even spicy pound cakes!

Hungry for More?

If you can’t get enough of space food, tune into this episode of “Houston, We Have a Podcast” and explore the delicious science of astronaut mealtime with Takiyah Sirmons. 

And whether you’re eating like a king or an astronaut, we wish everybody a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Ask Ethan: Where Is The Center Of The Universe?

“I am wondering how there isn’t a center of the universe and how the cosmic background radiation is [equally] far away everywhere we look. It seems to me that when the universe expands… there should be a place where it started expanding.”

Ah, the old center of the Universe question. If the Big Bang happened a long time ago, and we see galaxies moving away from us faster and faster the farther away they are, then where did the Big Bang happen? Where did the expansion start?

It seems like such a simple question, but it turns out this is the wrong question to be asking. The way space and the expanding Universe works is very different from the picture most of us have in our heads, which is much more like an explosion than like an expansion. Yet there’s a very large suite of evidence that points us away from an explosion.

Instead of asking *where* the Big Bang occurred, we should be asking *when* the Big Bang occurred. It makes a lot more sense when you think about it in those terms. Come and find out why.

Superfluidity consists of an anomalous liquid state of quantum nature which is under a very low temperature behaving as if it had no viscosity and exhibiting an abnormally high heat transfer. This phenomenon was observed for the first time in liquid helium and has applications not only in theories about liquid helium but also in astrophysics and theories of quantum gravitation.

Helium only ends boiling at 2.2 K and is when it becomes helium-II (superfluid helium), getting a thermal conductivity increased by a million times, in addition to becoming a superconductor. Its viscosity tends to zero, hence, if the liquid were placed in a cubic container it would spread all over the surface. Thus, the liquid can flow upwards, up the walls of the container. If the viscosity is zero, the flexibility of the material is non-existent and the propagation of waves on the material occurs under infinite velocity.

Because it is a noble gas, helium exhibits little intermolecular interaction. The interactions that it presents are the interactions of Van der Waals. As the relative intensity of these forces is small, and the mass of the two isotopes of helium is small, the quantum effects, usually disguised under the thermal agitation, begin to appear, leaving the liquid in a state in which the particles behave jointly, under effect of a single wave function. In the two liquids in which cases of superfluidity are known, that is, in isotopes 3 and 4 of helium, the first is composed of fermions whereas the second is composed of bosons. In both cases, the explanation requires the existence of bosons. In the case of helium-3, the fermions group in pairs, similar to what happens in the superconductivity with the Cooper pairs, to form bosons.

Helium’s liquidity at low temperatures allows it to carry out a transformation called Bose–Einstein condensation, in which individual particles overlap until they behave like one big particle.

Superfluid in astrophysics

The idea of superfluids existed within neutron stars was proposed by Russian physicist Arkady Migdal  in 1959. Making an analogy with Cooper pairs that form within superconductors, it is expected that protons and neutrons in the nucleus of a star of neutrons with sufficient high pressure and low temperature behave in a similar way forming pairs of Cooper and generate the phenomena of superfluidity and superconductivity.

The existence of this phenomenon was proven by NASA  in 2011 when analyzing the neutron star left by supernova Cassiopeia A.

sources: 1, 2, 3 & 4 animation: 1 & 2

Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein! Genius Scientist Turns 140 Years Old Today.

The year 1905 came to be known as Einstein’s Miracle Year. He was 26 years old, and in that year he published four papers that reshaped physics. 

Photoelectric effect

The first explained what’s called the photoelectric effect – one of the bases for modern-day electronics – with practical applications including television. His paper on the photoelectric effect helped pave the way for quantum mechanics by establishing that light is both a particle and a wave. For this work, Einstein was later awarded a Nobel Prize in physics.

Brownian motion 

Another 1905 paper related to Brownian motion. In it, Einstein stated that the seemingly random motion of particles in a fluid (Brownian motion) was a predictable, measurable part of the movement of atoms and molecules. This helped establish the Kinetic Molecular Theory of Heat, which says that, if you heat something, its molecules begin to vibrate. At this same time, Einstein provided definitive confirmation that atoms and molecules actually exist.

Special relativity

Also in 1905, Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. Before it, space, time and mass all seemed to be absolutes – the same for everyone. Einstein showed that different people perceive mass, space and time differently, but that these effects don’t show up until you start moving nearly at the speed of light. Then you find, for example, that time on a swiftly moving spaceship slows down, while the mass of the ship increases. According to Einstein, a spaceship traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass, and a body of infinite mass also has infinite resistance to motion. And that’s why nothing can accelerate to a speed faster than light speed. Because of Einstein’s special relativity, light is now seen as an absolute in a universe of shifting values for space, time and matter.

Mass-energy equivalence

The fourth 1905 paper stated that mass and energy are equivalent. You perhaps know something of this work in Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2. That equation means that energy (E) is equal to mass (m) multiplied by the speed of light © squared. Sound simple? It is, in a way. It means that matter and energy are the same thing. It’s also very profound, in part because the speed of light is a huge number. As shown by the equation, a small amount of mass can be converted into a large amount of energy … as in atomic bombs. It’s this same conversion of mass to energy, by the way, that causes stars to shine.

But Einstein didn’t stop there. As early as 1911, he’d predicted that light passing near a large mass, such as a star, would be bent. That idea led to his General Theory of Relativity in 1916.

This paper established the modern theory of gravitation and gave us the notion of curved space. Einstein showed, for example, that small masses such as planets form dimples in space-time that hardly affect the path of starlight. But big masses such as stars produce measurably curved space.

The fact that the curved space around our sun was measurable let other scientists prove Einstein’s theory. In 1919, two expeditions organized by Arthur Eddington photographed stars near the sun made visible during a solar eclipse. The displacement of these stars with respect to their true positions on the celestial sphere showed that the sun’s gravity does cause space to curve so that starlight traveling near the sun is bent from its original path. This observation confirmed Einstein’s theory, and made Einstein a household name. 

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You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory. Open up a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up new. Take my guests out charter fishing. Zihuatanejo. In a place like that, I could use a man that knows how to get things.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) dir. Frank Darabont

cosmic microwave background

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is electromagnetic radiation as a remnant from an early stage of the universe in Big Bang cosmology. In older literature, the CMB is also variously known as cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) or “relic radiation”. The CMB is a faint cosmic background radiation filling all space that is an important source of data on the early universe because it is the oldest electromagnetic radiation in the universe, dating to the epoch of recombination.

With a traditional optical telescope, the space between stars and galaxies (the background) is completely dark. However, a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope shows a faint background noise, or glow, almost isotropic, that is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the radio spectrum. The accidental discovery of the CMB in 1964 by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s, and earned the discoverers the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The discovery of CMB is landmark evidence of the Big Bang origin of the universe. When the universe was young, before the formation of stars and planets, it was denser, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from a white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled enough, protons and electrons combined to form neutral hydrogen atoms. Unlike the uncombined protons and electrons, these newly conceived atoms could not absorb the thermal radiation, and so the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog. Cosmologists refer to the time period when neutral atoms first formed as the recombination epoch, and the event shortly afterwards when photons started to travel freely through space rather than constantly being scattered by electrons and protons in plasma is referred to as photon decoupling.

Basically, cosmic microwave background radiation is the fossil of light, resulting from a time when the Universe was hot and dense, only 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

Cosmic microwave background radiation is an electromagnetic radiation that fills the entire universe, whose spectrum is that of a blackbody at a temperature of 2.725 kelvin.

Cosmic microwave background radiation, along with the spacing from galaxies and the abundance of light elements, is one of the strongest observational evidences of the Big Bang model, which describes the evolution of the universe. Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for this discovery

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images credit:  Image credit: Institute of Astronomy / National Tsing Hua University/ NASA/ESA Hubble, wikipedia