'Space Hurricane' confirmed to have formed above Earth
This storm rained electrons, shifted energy from the sun's rays to the magnetosphere, and went unnoticed for a long time.
- An international team of scientists has confirmed the existence of a "space hurricane" seven years ago.
- The storm formed in the magnetosphere above the North magnetic pole.
- The storm posed to risk to life on Earth, though it might have interfered with some electronics.
What do you call that kind of storm when it forms over the Arctic ocean?
<iframe width="730" height="430" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8GqnzBJkWcw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><p> Many objects in space, like Earth, the Sun, most of the planets, and even some large moons, have magnetic fields. The area around these objects which is affected by these fields is known as the magnetosphere.</p><p>For us Earthlings, the magnetosphere is what protects us from the most intense cosmic radiation and keeps the solar wind from affecting our atmosphere. When charged particles interact with it, we see the aurora. Its fluctuations lead to changes in what is known as "space weather," which can impact electronics. </p><p>This "space hurricane," as the scientists are calling it, was formed by the interactions between Earth's magnetosphere and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_magnetic_field" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interplanetary magnetic field,</a> the part of the sun's magnetosphere that goes out into the solar system. It took on the familiar shape of a cyclone as it followed magnetic fields. For example, the study's authors note that the numerous arms traced out the "footprints of the reconnected magnetic field lines." It rotated counter-clockwise with a speed of nearly 7,000 feet per second. The eye, of course, was still and <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-a-plasma-hurricane-has-been-detected-in-space" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">calm</a>.</p><p>The storm, which was invisible to the naked eye, rained electrons and shifted energy from space into the ionosphere. It seems as though such a thing can only form under calm situations when large amounts of energy are moving between the solar wind and the upper <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR854520.aspx" target="_blank">atmosphere</a>. These conditions were modeled by the scientists using 3-D <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21459-y#Sec10" target="_blank">imaging</a>.<br><br>Co-author Larry Lyons of UCLA explained the process of putting the data together to form the models to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/space-hurricane-rained-electrons-observed-first-time-rcna328" target="_blank">NBC</a>:<br><br>"We had various instruments measuring various things at different times, so it wasn't like we took a big picture and could see it. The really fun thing about this type of work is that we had to piece together bits of information and put together the whole picture."<br><br>He further mentioned that these findings were completely unexpected and that nobody that even theorized a thing like this could exist. <br></p><p>While this storm wasn't a threat to any life on Earth, a storm like this could have noticeable effects on space weather. This study suggests that this could have several effects, including "increased satellite drag, disturbances in High Frequency (HF) radio communications, and increased errors in over-the-horizon radar location, satellite navigation, and communication systems."</p><p>The authors <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21459-y#Sec8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">speculate</a> that these "space hurricanes" could also exist in the magnetospheres of other planets.</p><p>Lead author Professor Qing-He Zhang of Shandong University discussed how these findings will influence our understanding of the magnetosphere and its changes with <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uor-sho030221.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">EurekaAlert</a>:</p><p>"This study suggests that there are still existing local intense geomagnetic disturbance and energy depositions which is comparable to that during super storms. This will update our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling process under extremely quiet geomagnetic conditions."</p>NASA's Perseverance rover has a 1997 computer chip brain. Here's why.
It may be old tech, but it's super-reliable.
The G3 compared to today’s chips
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxMzA4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MjgxMDAxNX0.yAyX3ACtn3HMKyPB6hj8EJttWKNrfreOAC2PlK9GW4o/img.jpg?width=980" id="a5d5a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dc5cb2f37bed6b16f0e3f4f223069b2b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1237" data-height="1150" />Credit: Apple
<p>Apple veterans remember the G3 fondly. It was a futuristic, tower-style computer of translucent white and blue. Its side conveniently flipped open to facilitate expansion. It smoked older Macs with a processor operating speed that topped out at a screaming 266 megahertz (MHz).</p><p>Or so we thought at the time. Today's processors leave the G3 in the dust. The processor in an Apple iPhone 12 runs at <a href="https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_a14_bionic-1693" target="_blank">3 <em>GigaHertz</em></a> (GHz), while a Samsung Galaxy S21 runs at <a href="https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s21-ultra-snapdragon-vs-exynos-1195066/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2.9 GHz</a> in the U.S. model.</p><p>Not only that, but today's processors are multicore chips, meaning that they're like multiple processors running side by side within the chip. So, see ya later G3, as far as consumer use goes.</p><p>Still, the G3 was very reliable, and it was the first of a breed of chips to perform "dynamic branch prediction," an architecture still used today. It involves the CPU predicting upcoming tasks so as to line up its processing resources as efficiently as possible.</p>Perseverance's brain
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxMzA5NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjY4NzA5Mn0.8F043ECbcKycnfIAPJK7AnWdIwY3qdm_DjlzqYFnFms/img.jpg?width=980" id="2b434" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c0204d7b6b7731b7f92e40a83f761ae" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="756" />Old G3 (left), and the new G3 for Perseverance (right)
Credit: /Henriok/Wikimedia Commons
<p>The chip in Perseverance, the PowerPC 750, isn't even the fastest G3 chip — the single-core chip runs at 200 MHz, which is still 10 times the speed of the chips powering the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, according to NASA.</p><p>Perseverance's chip is also not an off-the-shelf PowerPC 750. It's a purpose-built, radiation-hardened version of the chip called the <a href="https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/bae-systems-rad750--single-board-computers-guide-insight-mars-landing" target="_blank">RAD750</a>. Fabricated by BEA Systems, the processor can operate in temperatures between -55 and 125° Celsius (-67 to 257 degrees Fahrenheit), perfect for Mars' frigid atmosphere. Also, because that atmosphere is so thin that its surface is continually bombarded with radiation, the RAD750 can withstand 200,000 to 1,000,000 Rads of radiation.</p><p>It's also not the RAD750's first trip to Mars: There was one onboard the Insight craft that landed there in November 2018.</p><p>NASA's upcoming <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Orion</a> craft will also use the RAD750. In 2014, when Orion was announced, NASA's Matt Lemke explained to <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2665/1" target="_blank">The Space Review</a> that "it's not about the speed as much as the ruggedness and the reliability. I need to make sure it will always work." Especially attractive was the RAD750's tolerance of radiation: "The one thing we really like about this computer is that it doesn't get destroyed by radiation. It can be upset, but it won't fail. We've done a lot of testing on the different parts in the computer. When it sees radiation, it might have to reset but it will come back up and work again."</p><p>The designers of Perseverance were also somewhat parsimonious with onboard memory — every millimeter/gram is precious on a spacecraft. Though storage isn't bad, at 2 GB of Flash memory, there's just 256 megabytes of working RAM and 256 kilobytes of EEPROM (electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory).</p><p>Back here on Earth, we're surrounded by RAD750 devices whizzing overhead in about 100 satellites. So far, not one of them has failed. No wonder the chip's been sent on such a critical mission the Red Planet.</p>Best. Science. Fiction. Show. Ever.
"The Expanse" is the best vision I've ever seen of a space-faring future that may be just a few generations away.
- Want three reasons why that headline is justified? Characters and acting, universe building, and science.
- For those who don't know, "The Expanse" is a series that's run on SyFy and Amazon Prime set about 200 years in the future in a mostly settled solar system with three waring factions: Earth, Mars, and Belters.
- No other show I know of manages to use real science so adeptly in the service of its story and its grand universe building.
Credit: "The Expanse" / Syfy
<p>Now, I get it if you don't agree with me. I love "Star Trek" and I thought "Battlestar Galactica" (the new one) was amazing and I do adore "The Mandalorian". They are all fun and important and worth watching and thinking about. And maybe you love them more than anything else. But when you sum up the acting, the universe building, and the use of real science where it matters, I think nothing can beat "The Expanse". And with a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_expanse" target="_blank">Rotten Tomato</a> average rating of 93%, I'm clearly not the only one who feels this way.</p><p>Best.</p><p>Show.</p><p>Ever. </p>Scientists grow extremophile microbes on rocks from Mars
The results could help NASA's Perseverance rover find evidence of ancient life on Mars.
- In a recent study, researchers simulated the environment of ancient Mars and tested whether a type of extremophile found on Earth could grow on fragments of a meteorite from Mars.
- Extremophiles are organisms that have adapted to survive in conditions in which most life forms cannot, such as ice, volcanoes, and space.
- The results showed that the extremophiles were able to convert the rock into energy. What's more, the microbes left behind biosignatures that could help scientists identify evidence of past life on Mars.
Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034
Credit: NASA
<p>Extremophiles are organisms that thrive in conditions where most life forms would die. Scientists have observed them in volcanoes, soda lakes, Antarctic ice, and hydrothermal vents. Some have even <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/tardigrades-extremophiles" target="_self">survived the vacuum of space</a>. The team behind the recent study focused on a particular class of extremophiles called chemolithotrophs, which are microbes that use inorganic compounds as a source of energy.<br></p><p>To test whether chemolithotrophs might have been able to evolve on Mars, the team placed a chemolithtrophic microbe called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallosphaera_sedula" target="_blank"><em>Metallosphaera sedula</em></a> onto bits of Black Beauty. The researchers simulated the ancient Martian environment by keeping the microbe-covered rock bits in a bioreactor that controlled temperature and levels of carbon dioxide and air.</p>The high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) image of the focused ion beam (FIB) section extracted for STEM analysis from the NWA 7034 fragment used in this study
Credit: Milojevic et al.
<p>Using microscopy, the researchers saw that the microbe successfully converted rock pieces into biomass.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Grown on Martian crustal material, the microbe formed a robust mineral capsule comprised [sic] of complexed iron, manganese and aluminum phosphates," Milojevic told Science Alert.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Apart from the massive encrustation of the cell surface, we have observed intracellular formation of crystalline deposits of a very complex nature (Fe, Mn oxides, mixed Mn silicates). These are distinguishable unique features of growth on the Noachian Martian breccia, which we did not observe previously when cultivating this microbe on terrestrial mineral sources and a stony chondritic meteorite."</p>Mars 2020 mission
<p>The study didn't prove that chemolithotrophs or any other type of life ever existed on Mars. But the results did show that the chemolithotrophs left behind unique biosignatures as they converted the rock bits into energy. </p><p>With these fingerprints on the books, scientists working with the Mars 2020 mission might be able to find similar biosignatures in rock samples collected or observed by the Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February. Rock samples collected by the rover are expected to return to Earth in 2031.</p>Astrophysicists find rare star spinning backwards
A unique star system where exoplanets orbit their star backwards located by researchers.
- Astrophysicists find a very rare system with two exoplanets orbiting their star backwards.
- The star system K2-290 is 897 light years away.
- In our Solar System, all the planets revolve in the same direction as the rotation of the Sun.
A protoplanetary disc was twisted almost 180° before planet formation.
Illustration: Christoffer Grønne.
