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Archive for the School Ain’t Over category

March 23, 2023

Plasma

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Wikipedia dicit:

Plasma (from Ancient Greek πλάσμα (plásma) ‘moldable substance’) is one of four fundamental states of matter, characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, being mostly associated with stars, including the Sun. Extending to the rarefied intracluster medium and possibly to intergalactic regions, plasma can be artificially generated by heating a neutral gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field.

The presence of charged particles makes plasma electrically conductive, with the dynamics of individual particles and macroscopic plasma motion governed by collective electromagnetic fields and very sensitive to externally applied fields. The response of plasma to electromagnetic fields is used in many modern devices and technologies, such as plasma televisions or plasma etching.

Depending on temperature and density, a certain number of neutral particles may also be present, in which case plasma is called partially ionized. Neon signs and lightning are examples of partially ionized plasmas. Unlike the phase transitions between the other three states of matter, the transition to plasma is relatively not well defined and is a matter of interpretation and context. Whether a given degree of ionization suffices to call a substance ‘plasma’ depends on the specific phenomenon being considered.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Beth Anthony (KBRwyle): Producer/Mara Johnson-Groh (Telophase): Writer/Barbara Giles (NASA/GSFC): Scientist/Genna Duberstein (ADNET): Writer/Music: “Artificial Intelligence†by Matteo Pagamici [SUISA], Max Molling [SUISA] via Universal Production Music

 

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April 13, 2021

Planetary Impact Simulation

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NASA dicit:

A cross-section of a 3D simulation replicating a scenario for the impact that formed the Moon, showing a roughly Mars-mass impactor grazing an Earth-like target at a 45-degree angle. The simulation uses over 100 million particles, colored by their internal energy, related to their temperature.

This is one of more than 300 simulations that scientists at Durham University in the United Kingdom, alongside researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, ran to develop a way to predict how much atmosphere is lost from a wide range of collisions between rocky objects, presented in a new study.

Video credit: Jacob Kegerreis/Durham University

 

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April 12, 2021

SmartSuit

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Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station dicit:

We propose a novel spacesuit intelligent architecture for extravehicular activity (EVA) operations on Mars and other planetary environments that increases human performance by an order of magnitude on several quantifiable fronts for exploration missions. The proposed SmartSuit spacesuit, while gas-pressurized, also incorporates soft-robotics technology that allows astronauts to be highly mobile and better interact with their surroundings. The spacesuit also incorporates a soft and stretchable self-healing skin (or membrane) located in the outer layer that not only protects the astronaut but also collects data through integrated, transparent sensors embedded in the membrane. These sensors are capable of visually displaying environmental and membrane structural information, providing visual feedback to the wearer about the surroundings.

Video credit: NASA

 

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February 22, 2021

NGC 6397

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NASA dicit:

Globular clusters are extremely dense stellar systems, which host stars that are closely packed together. These systems are also typically very old — the globular cluster at the focus of this study, NGC 6397, is almost as old as the universe itself. This cluster resides 7,800 light-years away, making it one of the closest globular clusters to Earth. Due to its very dense nucleus, it is known as a core-collapsed cluster.

At first, astronomers thought the globular cluster hosted an intermediate-mass black hole. These are the long-sought “missing link” between supermassive black holes (many millions of times our Sun’s mass) that lie at the cores of galaxies, and stellar-mass black holes (a few times our Sun’s mass) that form following the collapse of a single massive star. Their mere existence is hotly debated. Only a few candidates have been identified to date.

The researchers used previous estimates of the stars’ tiny proper motions (their apparent motions on the sky), which allow for determining their true velocities within the cluster. These precise measurements for stars in the cluster’s core could only be made with Hubble over several years of observation. The Hubble data were added to well-calibrated proper motion measurements provided by the European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory which are less precise than Hubble’s observations in the core.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Paul Morris: Lead Producer/Music: “Glass Ships” by Chris Constantinou [PRS] and Paul Frazer [PRS] via Killer Tracks [BMI] and Universal Production Music/Visual Credits: Artist’s Impression of the Black Hole Concentration in NGC 6397/Video credit: ESA/Hubble, N. Bartmann/Callout of the Black Hole Concentration in NGC 6397/Video credit: ESA/Hubble, N. Bartmann/Artist Rendition of Gaia Spacecraft/Image credit: ESA, C. Carreau

 

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December 22, 2020

Plants and CO2

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NASA dicit:

Plants play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide they absorb during photosynthesis, the less carbon dioxide remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend – 86% of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing the increasing levels of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio/Kathryn Mersmann (USRA): Lead Producer/Esprit Smith (KBR): Lead Writer/Benjamin Poulter (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

 

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September 9, 2020

Scramjet

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Wikipedia dicit:

A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion (hence ramjet), but whereas a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion, the airflow in a scramjet is supersonic throughout the entire engine. That allows the scramjet to operate efficiently at extremely high speeds.

Video credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

 

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