Positive Vibes 

A Disturbance In The F-Ring

A bright disruption in Saturn’s narrow F ring suggests it may have been disturbed recently. This feature was mostly likely not caused by Pandora (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) which lurks nearby, at lower right. More likely, it was created by the interaction of a small object embedded in the ring itself and material in the core of the ring. Scientists sometimes refer to these features as “jets.”

Because these bodies are small and embedded in the F ring itself, they are difficult to spot at the resolution available to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Instead, their handiwork reveals their presence, and scientists use the Cassini spacecraft to study these stealthy sculptors of the F ring.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 15 above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 8, 2016.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 105 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. -NASA/JPL-

Image above © NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

‘BLOOD LAMP’ Mike Thompson, an artist based in Amsterdam, wanted to design a piece that forced people to think about the cost of the power they use. So he made a lamp lit with the user’s blood. His “Blood Lamp” glows thanks to a reaction with luminol, a molecule used in police forensics that gives off electric blue light when exposed to an iron-rich protein in blood called hemoglobin. Iron atoms catalyze the oxidation of luminol, creating a high-energy, unstable peroxide molecule that releases energy as blue light as it relaxes to its low-energy ground state. After the user adds blood and the reaction consumes all of the luminol, the light fades, and the lamp can never be used again.

Credit: Mike Thompson

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Amber Ibarreche

A snake story, based on an experience I had while I was in Florida.

Vacuum distillation of polyaromatic compounds could be fun. 

In this case I only had to sit with an UV lamp to see when will my compound distill, since it had a bright blue fluorescence (as seen), while the side products of the reaction did not had any visible emission when irradiated with UV light.

Periodic table showing the cosmogenic origin of each element.

Via APOD

Original source: Wikimedia Commons (Nucleosynthesis periodic table)

today on adventuresinchemistry: mouth pipetting: horribly disgusting or the most horribly disgusting?

Space Lettuce in the White House Kitchen Garden

While most people plant gardens on Earth, we’re working to cultivate one in space!

On April 5, the First Lady welcomed students from across the country as well as NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman to the White House Kitchen Garden.

While there, they planted various produce, including the same variety of lettuce that will be sent to the International Space Station on the April 8 SpaceX cargo launch.

These seeds were prepared and packaged for both the First Lady’s garden, as well as the batch headed up to space station. “Outredgeous” Red Romaine Lettuce and “Tokyo bekana” Chinese Cabbage will soon be growing in both gardens!

Why do we grow plants in space?

Our Veggie plant growth system on the space station provides lighting and nutrient supply for a space garden. It supports a variety of plant species that can be cultivated for educational outreach, fresh food and even recreation for crew members on long-duration missions.

When crews travel farther into space, they will need a self-sustaining life support system, and that means growing their own food.

How do we grow plants in space? Here’s a resource for “Space Gardening 101”.

Want to see the space station seeds launch? You can watch Friday’s SpaceX cargo launch live online starting at 3:30 p.m. EDT, with launch scheduled for 4:43 p.m.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Device Rids Buses of Dangerous Pathogens The best place to enjoy a breath of fresh air may be a city bus, if Rice Univ. students have their way. A team of graduating seniors has created a system for public transit that would continually clear the air of pathogens that can lead to tuberculosis (TB), flu and pneumonia. The CityBusters – Joseph Spinella, Jerry Lue, Sundeep Mandava, Grace Ching and Shidong Chen, all seniors – have installed a $500 device on a METRO bus in Houston that has proven effective at killing 99.8 percent of the pathogens that circulate through the air-filtering system. The device, called FluProof, incorporates high-powered ultraviolet lamps that sterilize the air on the fly. Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Device-Rids-Busses-of-Dangerous-Pathogens-043012.aspx