Science Friday: LCROSS Impact Update + more

This week in Science Friday, read about this morning’s LCROSS impact of the moon, which happened this morning at 4:31 AM (PDT). Also learn how we can use all that newly discovered moon water for astronauts, the newest huge infrared discovery around Saturn, and some freaky glowing mushrooms. All this and more plus our gadget of the week: the Cupcake Cars!

 

LCROSS Impacts the Moon!
This morning at 4:31 AM (PDT) the Centaur stage and LCROSS spacecraft both impacted the moon in a south polar crater known as Cabeus. The centaur stage impact shot up a plume of dust (and hopefully water ice) which the LCROSS spacecraft flew through collecting data before it too hit the moon. NASA scientists have the data from LCROSS, but it is going to take a few days to analyze it to see if water ice was present in the plume. NASA TV was streaming live coverage of the event this morning. Many excited amateur astronomers watched the event through a large telescope. If you missed it, check out the video below courtesy of Robert Pearlman.

Microwaving Water from Moondust
With the recent discovery of water on the surface of the moon, NASA researchers are experimenting with ways to extract that water for use by astronauts. They believe that they can use microwaves to turn water ice on the moon into vapor, and then condense that vapor into liquid water. “Best of all, microwave extraction can be done on the spot. And it requires no excavation — no heavy equipment for drilling into the hard-frozen lunar surface,” says Ed Ethridge of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He calls his first mining experiment the “Moon in a bottle.” Preliminary research shows that this method could work under lunar conditions.


Can we turn a thermos of moondust into a thermos of water?

Saturn’s Largest Ring Discovered by Spitzer
Spitzer Space telescope recently spotted a huge previously unknown infrared ring around Saturn. The ring is huge — so huge that if you could see it in the night sky, it would span the width of two full moons. The massive IR belt lies in the far reaches of the Saturnian system, and is tilted 27° from the planet’s ring plane. The ring is tenuous, consisting of widely-dispersed particles of ice and dust. Spitzer’s infrared eyes were able to spot the glow of the cool dust, which has a temperature of only about 80 Kelvin (minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit). One of Saturn’s farthest moons, Phoebe, circles within the newfound ring, and is likely the source of its material.


Artist’s conception of Saturn’s largest ring


Inset showing Spitzer’s view of the IR ring

Weird Science: Glow-in-the-Dark Mushrooms
Seven new species of glow-in-the-dark mushrooms have been discovered, bringing the total number of bioluminescent fungi to 71. The findings, reported in the journal Mycologia, shed light on the evolution of luminescence. This tiny mushroom, known as Mycena silvaelucens, has caps less than 18 millimeters (0.7 inches) across and constantly produces a bright, neon green light. In natural light, however, the species appears to be a grayish-brown color. Researchers believe these fungi developed their glow-in-the-dark capability to attract animals that can spread the mushrooms’ spores much like fruit allows a plant to spread its seeds.


Glow-in-the-Dark shrooms in light (above) and darkness

Pic of the Week: Light a Candle in Space

When you’re floating around in the International Space Station, you’re constantly reminded that you’re having a literally out-of-this-world experience. Case in point: this is what it looks like when you light a candle in microgravity. Because of the lack of gravity, the air’s density is the same in all directions, so that means the heat disperses evenly, making the flame all the same color. (via DVICE)

Gadget of the Week: $25,000 ‘Cupcake Car’ Comes With a Matching Hat
$25,000 sounded like a lot to me. Well, at first. Then I noticed that each giant Cupcake Car comes with a matching hat. That’s one sweet deal. Still not sold? Well, maybe you should factor in that each electrically powered ‘cake zips along at a cool seven miles-an-hour and is probably the most delicious-looking collection of sheet metal, wire, fabric and wood ever assembled. Impressive, right? The high price comes from the fact that each one is custom designed with your choice of toppings and colors. It all started as a project for Burning Man, created by a team of artists led by the Bay Area’s Lisa Pongrace. (via DVICE)


Freaky smiling cupcake people (with matching hats!)

#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 and techies to follow on Twitter. This week…

  • @apod: Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
  • @amandatapping: Amanda Tapping from Stargate: SG-1 is brand new to Twitter.
  • @twisst: Get alerts from this twitter account when international space station (ISS) will be passing over your exact location.

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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Cool stuff Kayla! =)

I wanna eat some glow-in-the-dark mushrooms and ride around in a giant cupcake! =D

Cool

“Star Trek XII: Attack of the Cupcake People”

My God….its full of stars. And assorted colors and flavors

I thought there was going to be an explosion…
Grrr…

@5

lol, god i know i am geek when i found that really funny

So when can we expect the moon people’s retaliation for intentionally crashing into them?

Or are they just gonna send us an insurance bill? :-)

^^we could send them cupcakes?

#2) I am not Herbert, I’d be careful eating your organized collectives of fungus (aka Mushrooms), If you find the right ones you’ll be driving those cupcakes all day, at least in your mind or whats left of it will be.

When I worked at Pizza Hut they hated my labeling those things fungus. But I never did like those things. I at least never labeled them that face to face to a customer. I was not that dumb. I left their when I found out I was making more than some managers and I was only an assistant manager.

Herd about the genetics from fire fly’s inserted into plants, and that was a year ago, but this is the first photos I’ve seen. So when do we get glow in the dark people, and will they make convicted cat burglars be genetically altered to retard their professional goals.

If they do that I can see legal fights as big as church/state fights blooming.

The NASA TV coverage was about as exciting as whating mold grow. But that is the wonders of scientific exploration.

And why did the survay probe black out just before it hit. Did a UFO hiding in the crater and in fear of damage or death flee for safty so NASA under federal orders kill the video. If that happened or not you know it will give the UFO’ers new material to promote. We may not know the truth until us humans get to explore the crater in person. And if we find something metallic that is stamped made in outer space those rumors will still be used.

If I was in control of the mission I would have had a probe to be at the crash site looking up to show what space impacts really do to things.

@11: 2010… the crater scene :D

also why is there a Red Dwarf logo around Saturn? xD

Blackshirt leaves Redshirt hanging during hi-five attempt at NASA moon bomb control center:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z4E2s5p3EQ

Wow, was that the best footage they could provide?

This website says Science Friday but does not appear affiliated with NPR
or Ira Flatow (Science Friday) who actually used his whole program
today (Oct 9th) to talk about bird migrations and other feathery
somesuch, but did not say one word about LCROSS! Flatow is often
“out to lunch”! NPR did finally include LCROSS in All Things Considered
who did a nice feature later in the day ……… after Ira Flatow aka “Iowa Plato” botched his chance …………

Kudos to NASA for bombing the moon. That could spur somebody’s interest in exploiting our celestial buddy for commecial purposes — which is the only way the human race is gonna get off Earth in any large numbers. I just wish they’d spent more on the special effects. I was beginning to wonder whether they missed.

I could make a joke about Kayla Cupcake being a great porn name… but I think it already is.

*runs like hell*

11. Spockish… “And why did the survay probe black out just before it hit.”

They picture blacked out because LCROSS was traveling at 6,000 mph. What we saw was the last picture it had time to take and transmit to Earth before the Big Splat. The same thing happened with the old Ranger probes in the 1960s.

11. Spockish… “If I was in control of the mission I would have had a probe to be at the crash site looking up to show what space impacts really do to things.”

That would have defeated the purpose. We sent an impactor to the bottom of that crater because sending a lander there is very hard. If there is ice, it is at the bottom of craters that never see sunlight. If there is no sunlight, we can’t land a solar-powered probe there. So such a lander would have needed nuclear power, and that would be prohibitively expensive. Hence the low-budget LCROSS mission.

What did you guys expect the LCROSS mission to look like? I’m really surprised by the high expectations of what people thought they were going to see. This isn’t like the movies, you weren’t going to see laser beams and pew pew pew noises. For all intensive purposes it was a success. Unfortunately for most of the people it seems like space exploration just isn’t very exciting if this is what they expected.

Wait about 10-25 more years or so. It’s going to get really good. Then again, I guess most of us wish we lived in the 24th century. I know I do.

Wow!!!! Kayla, like dude . . . FLASHBACKS!!!!!

Like, ya know, wow, like . . . invisable explosions on the Moon, like . . . giant glowing rings in the sky, an’ like . . . glow-in-the-dark mushrooms, like . . . freaky smiling cupcake people on wheels . . . WHEW! . . . flashbacks of a really great acid trip I had in college . . . thanks Kayla . . . (floats away) . . . .

One of these days they will get Interstellar communications working 100%, but in the mean time they can expect things to happen but if it is the first time for some thing new expect bugs.

I’ve even heard that they are aiming at and are currently structuring space communications much like the way Internet Web content is stuructured.

To #18) Steve D. Is not NASA’s motto since 2006, Smaller, Faster, Cheaper that it got from Lockheed Martian after the First Mars Rover did such a great job.

And my brother, whom did not see the live video show at work, said their was even a rumor going around the Engineering staff at Lockheed Martian, that it was NASA and the FEDs hiding the UFO’s from the public. It was only meant as a joke, and so was my comment, trying to add humor. But to many second hand viewers the humor just floats by because the joke was not told or aimed at them. We’re not all stand up comedians.

18. Steven D…. “What did you guys expect the LCROSS mission to look like? I’m really surprised by the high expectations of what people thought they were going to see.”

I think most of us were expecting something like the Deep Impact event (the space probe, not the movie.) That was an enormous flash and a debris cloud so thick the mother probe could see the impact point.

That should be “couldn’t see the impact point.”

response 18# comment:Wait about 10-25 more years or so. It’s going to get really good. Then again, I guess most of us wish we lived in the 24th century. I know I do.

Doesn’t everybody lol

The Hubble could have watched it..but no one thought to turn it on..

24. toddk… “The Hubble could have watched it..but no one thought to turn it on..”

Hubble did watch it.

I don’t mean to be rude but that guys upload of the LCROSS thing isn’t the best. I did a bit of brightness and contrasting and you can see it much better in mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AHWiDLLDQI