Science Friday: Real Tractor Beam + Another Earth? + Ancient Whale + Jupiter Lights Up + Shirt in a Can

Wow, it’s been a while! A big welcome back to Science Friday, now broadcasting all the way from merry old England. This week we may have finally found another planet to live on, try out a real life tractor beam, discover a 3-million-year-old whale at the zoo, light up Jupiter’s atmosphere, and see the night sky pass overhead. All this and more, plus our gadget of the week: Shirt in a Can!

 

Real Life Tractor Beams
Tractor beams are one of those Star Trek technologies for which we’re never really shown how it works. It just works. And, that’s what has always made it one of the more fantasy technologies. But, now, scientists at the Australian National University have created the very first real tractor beam, which can move small particles multiple feet using only light. Here’s how it works:

The device works by shining a hollow laser beam around tiny glass particles. The air surrounding the particle heats up, while the dark center of the beam stays cool. When the particle starts to drift out of the middle and into the bright laser beam, the force of heated air molecules bouncing around and hitting the particle’s surface is enough to nudge it back to the center.

Not exactly the tech to move starships, but perhaps one day!


The first real tractor beam!

Scientist Believe Extra-solar planet has life
Back in April we reported on the discovery of Gliese 518 e, a large rocky planet around the Gliese 581 star, 20 light years from Earth. That planet was is not expected to have life, but this week Astronomers announced the discovery of Gliese 581 g, a rocky planet inside the habitable zone which is expected to be able to support life. In fact, at the press conference astrophysicist Steven Vogt stated "My own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it.” Here is a report from NBC.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

3-Million-Year-Old Whale Uncovered at San Diego Zoo
A construction crew recently discovered a rather unexpected animal at the San Diego zoo. The crew was using an excavator to dig up sand, when their machine hit something solid. It turned out to be a prehistoric whale skeleton. The 24-foot baleen whale appears to be very well preserved, with much of the fossilized skeleton present. Finding an intact skull, along with the vertebrae and flippers, is quite rare, according to Sarah Siren, San Diego Natural History Museum paleontological field manager. The whale lived during a time when ocean covered what is now known as San Diego during The Great American Interchange, where various land and freshwater faunas migrated between North and South America.


24-foot prehistoric baleen whale

Fireballs Lighting Up Jupiter
In a paper published this month in Astrophysical Journal Letters, a group of professional an amateur astronomers announced that Jupiter is being hit surprisingly often by small asteroids, which light up the planet’s atmosphere with fireballs. As Jupiter is the most massive planet in the solar system, it is a “gravitational vacuum cleaner” sweeping up any objects that come too close. “It is clear now that relatively small objects left over from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago still hit Jupiter frequently,” says co-author and JPL astronomer. The impacts are bright enough to see through backyard telescopes on Earth. Indeed, amateur astronomers were the first to detect them, recording two fireballs in 2010 alone—one on June 3rd and another on August 20th. The pros followed up, hoping to learn more. Check out a video of one of the impacts below.

Video: Night Sky Time Lapse
A video titled by the author as “Perseid Meteor Shower Failure” may have failed to capture many shooting stars, but it sure is one gorgeous view of the night sky. The Milky Way is bright and vivid, and planes that streak across the night sky make an awesome light show. Plus, I’m sure I did see one or two meteors streaking across the frame. Check it out below!



Perseid Meteor Shower Failure from ph dee on Vimeo.

Gadget of the Week: Spray on Clothing
Ever find yourself without a shirt and need one quickly…how about a Shirt in a Can. No that isn’t a gag from Futurama, but the result of real work being done at the Imperial College of London. Watch the video report below.


 

#FollowFriday

If you are on Twitter, you know there are plenty of amazing people out there tweeting away. And, many of them are scientists! Every Friday I’ll be bringing you a new list of great scientists, techies, and trekkies to follow on Twitter. This week…

  • @LauraBeesWord: I wish I had scintillating zingers to throw at you. I have nothing other than my own wisecracks to tweet to a Twitter. Please, don’t litter.
  • @FakeScience: For when the facts are too confusing.
  • @apizzagirl: Trekkie & scifi fan, drunk tweeter, bibliophile, ichthyophobe, shining beacon of pizza.

Science Quickies
Not enough science for you? Here’s a warp-speed look at some more science tid-bits that are worth a look.

 


TrekMovie’s Science Friday is an homage the the great NPR radio show Science Friday. Science Friday® is a registered service mark of ScienceFriday Inc.

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Another planet like Earth? Cool! Let’s go!

Why no moons in the Jupiter impact video?

The spray on clothing potentially could have applications for burn victims.

The entire Gliese 518 e story is fascinating. At least one scientist is on record as saying there is life there.

“Dr Steven Vogt who led the study at the University of California, Santa Cruz, today said that he was ‘100 per cent sure ‘ that there was life on the planet.”

What I haven’t seen in most media reports is that a “laser like pulse of light” was discovered coming from this planet two years ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316538/Gliese-581g-mystery-Scientist-spotted-mysterious-pulse-light-direction-newEarth-planet-year.html

I am confident that life exists elsewhere, I just hope it is confirmed in my lifetime.

JJ Abrams may have to start incorporating real planets outside our solar system into Star Trek now!

The Gliesian Hegemony! 4-meter high reptilian bipeds with giant transparent craniums on the sunny side of the terminator, and an ancient civilization of gigantic blind fur-covered slugs on the dark side….

Or maybe not.

Gliese 518e is only 120 trillion miles away. If we can find a way to travel 1/4 the speed of light (167 million MPH), it should only take us around 80 years.

I think my math is correct. Feel free to correct me. Chris

To quote Liz Lemon “I want to go to there…”

Chris, certainly we could beam a grapefruit there :)

Well, Chris, there’s acceleration and deceleration to consider, but Gliese is close enough to be a neighbor. A generational ship wouldn’t be unimaginable … though still very, VERY difficult to pull off.

In the meantime, if anyone is there with a radio, it would be fun to chat with them. :-)

Scott B. out.

Welcome back (cybernetically speaking) Kayla!

Good news on the goldilocks planet. Just don’t start sending all those tweets. You never know who may decide to visit us.

The fireballs on jupiter video is fascinating if a bit of an effort to see 2 seconds worth.

And I’m reasonably sure that the only reason that the scientist invented spray on clothing was to get coeds out of their shirts. And then spray them. Well done, scientist dude.

9. Scott B

Well, Chris, there’s acceleration and deceleration to consider, but Gliese is close enough to be a neighbor. A generational ship wouldn’t be unimaginable … though still very, VERY difficult to pull off.

Yes, many variables to consider. One thing for sure, I would sign up in a heartbeat (to go on a generational ship). C

Hmmm… not sure I would want to visit a tidal locked planet… unless we could get some outer space cats to get the rotation going. :)

6.

Since the article states that the planet is 20 light years from Earth, then travelling there at 1/4 light speed WOULD take 80 years.

Sorry, didn’t mean to go all Spock-like on your ass. :>)

p.s. it is a great pleasure to “chat” with you, Chris. Loved your father, he was a great human being!

I second that emotion, Mr. Doohan. Your dad was an absolute joy to watch!

“No bloody A, B, C, or D.”

:D

Great collection of articles.

A signal from the Gliese 581 system was received in December 2008 by Australian astrophysicist, Ragbir Bhathal, long before it was announced that Gliese 581 has habitable planets around it. He’s since been searching for a repeat of the signal for peer-review.

thank futurama for the spray on clothing

Wow, 16 non-lecherous comments in a row. Another forum that included the spray on clothing item was dominated by them. Nerds :p

Futurama? Didn’t the kid from “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” make spray-on shoes?

Is that light beam the first step to first contact? Geliese 581 might be Vulcan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i was thinking ‘nice Boobs’ but the comment about using the spray tech for burn patients is solid. That would be cool, if they could pull something like it off…

6. Chris Doohan – October 1, 2010

Well, you would have to accelerate at 1g for half the journey, then turn the ship and decelerate at 1g braking for the other half to enable the necessary grav simulation for a journey of that length, so the maths question would be: after 2 x 10 light years at 10m/s2, what is the mean velocity? and then what effect would time dilation be having with that?

3, 10, 16, 17. Actually, according to “The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture” by Susan Sackett and Gene Roddenberry, the uniforms of Star Trek were supposed to be spray on. In fact, you may recall that, in one scene of the movie itself, Kirk rushes into his navigator Lt. Ilia’s quarters expecting for a plasma-like probe from the entity V’ger. Instead, he sees what he thinks is his nude female navigator taking a shower in the lieutenant’s sonic shower. Ever the Starfleet officer and gentlemen that he is, he “sprays” – actually, more like beams – clothing onto her. (He soon finds out, though, that she is in reality the probe itself, which minutes earlier killed the real Ilia and transformed into a robotic version of her.) And the spray-on nature of the uniforms explains why each uniform and the boots were integrated as one.

By the way, in the TOS episode “Spock’s Brain”, after Kirk and his landing party beam down to planet Sigma Draconis VI, he orders his men to set their “Suit temperatures at 72″. Although many people would rank this episode as one of the worst in the franchise, it does indicate that a Starfleet uniform has some kind of internal heating system. However, whenever Kirk’s uniform gets gratuitously ripped, we never see tiny wires dangling out. So, the heating system probably employs what we would call nanotechnology today, although not as sophisticated and potentially dangerous as the nanites in the TNG episode “Evolution”.

Such nanotechnological heating systems embedded in the uniforms could certainly explain how Starfleet officers are able to survive for limited periods of time in subfreezing environments as shown in the TOS episodes “The Enemy Within” and “All Our Yesterdays”, and the TOS movie “The Undiscovered Country”, as well as “Spock’s Brain”.

So if Star Trek employs such futuristic science fictional technology as artificial gravity, deflectors, phasers, subspace radioes, transporters, tricorders, and warp drives, then why not also use beam-on nanotech clothing?

Sure , why not? And when the beam-on nanotech clothing is the wrong size, a robot tailor pops up saying, “don’t worry, we’ll take it in!” :>)

The spray on shirt, not recommended for guys with chest hair.

25. Robert H

Hah! I was about to say the same! I’d have to get seriously waxed or lasered before I could be sprayed!

You get the distinct feeling life was already discovered on Mars or somewhere else in our own solar system but certain people have kept it highly confidential.

Curious how the ‘only’ planet apparently suitable for life (other than our own) happens to be located 20 light years away, conveniently ‘too far’ for any immediate confirmation.

Yeah, it’s a conspiracy theory, but doesn’t mean it’s not true. Google search and you’ll find some compelling evidence out there.

#27

“You get the distinct feeling…”

No, it’s just you.

Chris Doohan, I’ll go. Of course, the one who really gets a lousy deal is the “middle” generation (s). But, maybe we can build a city-ship that’s worth living on for an entire lifetime. Read more Iain Banks. One thing’s for sure, it wouldn’t be cheap to build. And one science show on Discovery pointed out, the folks who bankrupt their country to do might never hear back from the ones they send. We’d have to boldly go.

28.

That’s true, not many people consider ‘all possibilities’.

Spray on Clothing needs to be a tightly controlled technology – similar to the way Spandex SHOULD have been. For some (perhaps most) people, it should simply be illegal – period.

#30

Oh, it’s fun to consider ‘all possibilities’ when you’re driving or trying to go to sleep late at night, but you can’t disregard the evidence when it’s right in front of you. Have you seen the pictures from Mars? Not exactly a postcard from Eden. But then again, you could be right; there could be a few microbes still under the Martian soil. I just wouldn’t expect any tripods marching down Main Street any time soon. ;)

First and second season TNG uniforms (sadly) looked sprayed on. Yeesh.
Though I liked what Bob Blackman evolved them into in the 3rd-7th, I never could get past the “can you zip me up?” zipper in the BACK.
Also note that the early 3rd season uniforms fitted much better than they did later on- they kept allowing for increasing actor girth!

32.

I happen to know a person who worked on the Odyssey/Themis imagery. The pictures are no stranger to me but it doesn’t seem like you’ve done much research before having formed your opinion.

Have ‘you’ seen the real Mars pictures? and I’m not talking about the ones NASA show the public – oversaturating the red channel – yeah, Mars sure looks dead that way.

I’m talking about the raw .tif images.

I hesitate to offer any links because I’m not here to advertise for anyone. But to put it simply friend, if you do some research, you’ll find overwhelming evidence that what I say is true.

It goes way beyond Mars, maybe you should start with The Moon. You might just be surprised.

Anomalous structures, not necessarily “life”.

Best regards,

#34

Well, I’m not ruling out that there may be the smallest chance of some old alien Boy Scout camping grounds scattered across the Martian plains, but you have to admit the planet looks about as inviting as the outskirts of Reno, Nevada. According to the Mars Real Estate Society, Mars has a 95% carbon dioxide atmosphere, gigantic dust storms that can go on for weeks at a time, and only one casino in the entire northern hemisphere—and they don’t even have valet parking!

Gliese 581G is much nicer. Tidal locked, yes, but they have no state income tax, and their property taxes are very reasonable, which is what you really want in an interstellar getaway.

Now, I have a four o’clock on Wednesday, but I can squeeze you in at four-thirty to see the Beeblebrox place. It’s very nice—granite countertops, walk-in closets—Oh, and it’s just inside the habitable zone, giving you and your significant other sunsets year round! Very romantic if I say so myself… which I just did.

:D

Chances are Gliese 581 G is totally uninhabitable. The planet doesn’t spin, so one side of the planet is too hot and the other side is too cold. Plus, there might not be a magnetic field to absorb the high amounts of solar radiation that bombards the planet. The Earth has a magnetic field which is generated by magmatic activity beneath the crust of our planet which is fuelled by the intense heat caused by the reaction of iron and nickel deposits in the core. It is what rotates the planet. Also the absense of a moon may make it harder for life to exist on Gliese 581 G because without a moon, and indeed without an active core, there would be no tidal forces and currents to deposit life-building minerals and bacteria to places around the planet. So it is quite likely that on the warm side of the planet, water would be too hot and stagnant to support life. And on the dark side, the oceans would be frozen.

35.

“Mars has a 95% carbon dioxide atmosphere”

According to NASA, who happen to be your only source of information on Mars. It’s an appeal to authority on your part and many others too. You must be more skeptical of authority, because you really have no way of authenticating the information, you simply ‘believe’ you are given accurate information. You also seem to believe you’re ‘entitled’ to know the truth. NASA are not a civilian science agency, they are a subset of the DoD.

Read the brookings report, they don’t seem to think you are entitled to anything.

It’s not really about aliens, it’s about history. I could offer lots of evidence but this isn’t the venue and I don’t really have the time to convince you either.

A few references if you care.

Dark Mission – Richard C. Hoagland
Forbidden Archeology – Michael Cremo
Chariots of the Gods – Erik Von Daniken

Vegas is real habitable :)

All the best,

That pisses me off that a scientist would say the he believes that the chances of life on that planet are “100%”. What a ridiculous thing for a scientist to say. It’s 20 light years away. They haven’t even said yet if it even has an atmosphere, or if it does, what kind of atmosphere. With all the Right-wing critics and religious nuts out there who love to think that we’re the center of the universe, you’d think that a scientist would be more careful and realistic about what we actually know about this new-found planet before making a claim like that. A rocky planet within the habitable zone is hardly “100%” evidence of life. that’s not evidence of anything at all. We have 4 rocky planets close to our sun. Mars is within the habitable zone, but we haven’t found anything there yet. And it’s right next door! This thing is 20 light years away.

#36. “The Earth has a magnetic field which is generated by magmatic activity beneath the crust of our planet which is fuelled (sic) by the intense heat caused by the reaction of iron and nickel deposits in the core. It is what rotates the planet.” – Red Dead Ryan

I’m going to chalk this up to you having found a really good deal on some booze this weekend (And I want you to name names.) because the planet Earth’s rotation and the rotation of all the bodies in our Solar system have nothing to do with nickel-iron reactions in their cores.

Also you are confusing the need for a magnetic shield for life to exist on or near the surface of an ocean with being requisite for life to evolve sub surface – two completely different things.

#38.

I think you are confusing “My own personal feeling” with being some sort of valid scientific argument that’s been peer reviewed. He was only offering an opinion. On NPR’s SCIENCE FRIDAY with Ira Flatow he even made it more clear that it was only an opinion no more valid than any other but he did add something about it being a feeling he derived from his experience in dealing with raw data of similar quality for unusual environments on earth itself found to be able to support life.

#37

Well, until I see a raw photo of some oak trees growing on Mars, I’m going to consider that planet dead. Sorry, Mulder.

#37

Oh, and a little reference for you if you care:

Occam’s razor — William of Ockham.

It’s not a bad read and very short. Spock approved. :)

Are there any news sources for the signal from gliese, besides the Daily Fail? That rag is tabloid trash, and can never be considered factually reliable.

I’d dearly love it to be true, so someone, please, back it up!

39

The reactions going on in the core do affect the spin of the Earth ( and the moon also plays a role). The core generates heat and heat creates movement. Though if the core went dead, we’d still spin, if only because of inertia. And the active core is needed for life on our planet (or else it would be too cold during the night).

The iron-nickel reaction in the core allowed for minerals and gases to be sent up to the surface through volcanic activity. That along with the theoretical collision of ice-carrying comets proved vital for the creation of life. Mars, for example doesn’t have an active core (anymore), so it has become too cold,no longer experiences much volcanic activity, plus it doesn’t have a magnetic field. That planet is being bombarded with too much solar radiation for life (as we know it at least) to exist. And solar radiation is believed to be strong enough to penetrate solid rock at least a few meters deep. And so it would easily affect the oceans. Not to mention wreak havoc with an atmosphere, such as trapping in too much greenhouse gases and water vapor (if there is water on the surface). Such as what may have happened to Venus, though there is no proof life ever existed on that planet.

As I said earlier, it sounds like Gliese 581 G has a dead core. The planet is apparently not spinning, which would mean one side is getting too much radiation and the other side not enough. Any liquid that may be on the planet doesn’t mean its H2O. It could be liquid methane or something else entirely. Doesn’t mean life can’t exist, it just makes it highy unlikely.

25. haha! funny mental image!

It’s cool, sure, about the suspected life Gliese 581 g, but really, that scientist has no where near enough scientific information to say something as ridiculously sure as “chances of life/100%” I mean, come on, get real. I’m all for optimism but to go that far already is just plain illogical.

It’s 581g. Little g. If it were a star, it would be 581 G.

The central star gets the A designation if needed. The first planet discovered gets a small b. Then up they go in order of discovery. So, use 581g.

581g would have a “ring” of temperature range somewhere between the subsolar hottest temperature point and the coldest dark side low temperature point that would be well in the range for liquid water.

Liquid methane couldn’t exist at the temperatures 581g is experiencing. Way too warm for that, even with convection from the lit side, and radiation through 581g. Not to mention potential volcanic activity from the circularization of any ellipticity in the orbit (which would cause a nutation due to tidal locking creating a conflict between steady rotation and one rotation per revolution).

Also, comets alone did not bring Earth its water (Comins, Discovering the Universe, 2010). The solar nebula contained plenty of water at the range where Earth formed. So there were plenty of ‘ices’ in the original Earth before it was struck by Theia to create the Moon. Comets just added to surface water.

Regardless if Gliese 581g (or as I like to call it—“Icy-Hot”) can support life or not, I think the important thing to remember here is that this thing was found so soon and so relatively close to us. This, as the scientist points out, logically suggests that there are millions if not billions of habitable planets out there. Good news all around.

Now, let’s get back to looking!

46

Thanks for clearing up the “g” thing! :-)

Liquid methane could exist on the frozen side of Gliese 581g. And any habitable ring would take up a small percentage of the planet. We also don’t know the atmospheric make-up.

Steven Vogt’s statement that “…chances of life on this planet are 100%.” is very presumptous considering that the planet remains a big mystery and that just because its in the “Goldilocks zone” doesn’t mean that it is anything like Earth.

imagine how different of an environment, and even more so a civilisation, would be without the existence of days.

37. Maj – “It’s an appeal to authority on your part…”

Actually it isn’t. Merely citing the statement of a presumed authority does not constitute the logical fallacy of “an appeal to authority”. It must go further than that, to include the idea that the authoritative nature of the source settles the question.

Skepticism of authorities is a good thing. Presuming that a statement made by autorhoty is automatically false would be just as fallacious as presuming that it must be true.