Mad Scientist

cozydark: Multiplanet System Has Orientation Very Similar to...

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:50:38 -0400

Multiplanet System Has Orientation Very Similar to Our Own |

Our solar system exhibits a remarkably orderly configuration: The eight planets orbit the sun much like runners on a track, circling in their respective lanes and always keeping within the same sprawling plane. In contrast, most exoplanets discovered in recent years — particularly the giants known as “hot Jupiters” — inhabit far more eccentric orbits.

Now researchers at MIT, the University of California at Santa Cruz and other institutions have detected the first exoplanetary system, 10,000 light years away, with regularly aligned orbits similar to those in our solar system. At the center of this faraway system is Kepler-30, a star as bright and massive as the sun. After analyzing data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, the MIT scientists and their colleagues discovered that the star — much like the sun — rotates around a vertical axis and its three planets have orbits that are all in the same plane.

“In our solar system, the trajectory of the planets is parallel to the rotation of the sun, which shows they probably formed from a spinning disc,” says Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, a physics graduate student at MIT who led the research effort. “In this system, we show that the same thing happens.”

Their findings, published July 25 in the journal Nature, may help explain the origins of certain far-flung systems while shedding light on our own planetary neighborhood.

“It’s telling me that the solar system isn’t some fluke,” says Josh Winn, an associate professor of physics at MIT and a co-author on the paper. “The fact that the sun’s rotation is lined up with the planets’ orbits, that’s probably not some freak coincidence.” continue reading

xinako: barbiesblackfriend: with-club-sauce: videohall: Paras...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 08:43:27 -0400

xinako:

barbiesblackfriend:

with-club-sauce:

videohall:

Parasite comes out of praying mantis

i think ill go die now

ooooooooohh!!!! csm….

sciencesoup: Teleportation in Time One of the spookiest...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:14:56 -0400

sciencesoup:

Teleportation in Time

One of the spookiest phenomenon of the quantum world is entanglement, where two particles can become so deeply linked that they share the same fate—the behaviour of one immediately influences the other, even if they’re separated in space. Quantum entanglement has helped create uncrackable codes, build ultrafast computers and transmit huge amounts of information using only a few atoms—and now, Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph at the University of Queensland, Australia, have mathematically described how entanglement could bind particles not only through space, but also through time. It isn’t yes clear how it can be tested, but it’s a strangely intuitive conclusion. The idea originated from a simplified view of the universe, consisting of one dimension of space (x-axis) and one dimension of time (t-axis), where there are points of symmetry in the past and future, and for a quantum “message” to be sent, the particle must be symmetric in time. For this reason, the process is called “teleportation in time.” Olson says that “it’s not time travel as you would ordinarily think of it, where it’s like, poof! you’re in the future—but you get to skip the intervening time.”

Read Olson and Ralph’s original paper

sciencesoup: Does the Universe have a North? Humans evolved in...

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:17:56 -0400

sciencesoup:

Does the Universe have a North?

Humans evolved in an environment with gravity and a magnetic field, so we’re so used to concepts such as up and down, north and south. There is actually no “right way up” in the universe, no universally common axis—because direction relies on the observer. Earth only has a north and south due to its magnetic field created by the rotation of its molten core, and these concepts only apply in a coordinate system. Compass directions or longitudinal lines don’t actually “exist”—they’re purely reference points created by humans for navigation. Australia, for example, is only known as “down under” because our navigational system decided that the southern hemisphere is downwards. Similarly, up and down are concepts that we’ve created to refer to gravity’s pull—‘up’ is away from the centre of gravity and ‘down’ is towards it. In the context of the universe, however, there’s no north or south or up or down. There is no universe-spanning magnetic field, so the universe has no up and down, no centre, no edge (you’re welcome nerdfighters), and no point of reference relative to everything else. So, there’s no intrinsic north in space—it’s difficult to imagine, but north is a purely human concept.

ikenbot: Major Solar Flare Erupts From Giant Sunspot The sun...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:19:57 -0400

ikenbot:

Major Solar Flare Erupts From Giant Sunspot

The sun unleashed a huge flare Thursday (July 12), the second major solar storm to erupt from our star in less than a week.

The solar flare peaked at 12:52 p.m. EDT (1652 GMT) as an X-class sun storm, the most powerful type of flare the sun can have.

“It erupted from Active Region 1520, which rotated into view on July 6,” NASA officials said in an alert. Active Region 1520, or AR1520, is a giant sunspot currently facing Earth.

Continue..

now this is some cool geology crownedrose: Here’s some more...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 02:12:26 -0400

Anticline in England

Utah geology in 1993

Folds on Beach

Geology in Spain

Syncline roadcut in Maryland

Anticline in the Bude Formation, England

Road cut

now this is some cool geology

crownedrose:

Here’s some more yummy geology photos for you guys!

Anticline in England by Earthwatcher on Flickr

Geology in Utah from 1993 by Gord McKenna in Flickr

Folds on beach by Museum of the University of St Andrews on Flickr

Geology in Spain by Son Of Groucho on Flickr

Syncline roadcut in Maryland by *nettie* on Flickr

Anticline in the Bude Formation, England by Earthwatcher on Flickr

Road cut by eventualbuddha on Flickr

crownedrose: This is Pilot Mountain in North Carolina. This is...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 02:11:51 -0400

crownedrose:

This is Pilot Mountain in North Carolina. This is a perfect example of how different minerals weather at different rates. The section sticking out at the very top is made up of quartzite, which is much more durable - and thus weathers slowly - than the other minerals that make up the surrounding rock below.

The photo above is by DMattPhotography on Flickr.

crownedrose: Svartifoss, Iceland by Dr. Jaus on...

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:34:14 -0400

crownedrose:

Svartifoss, Iceland by Dr. Jaus on Flickr

Iceland is such a beautiful place! This should be on everyone’s list of locations to visit. Iceland is incredibly rich with earth sciences, as many already know. Besides, who doesn’t love columnar basalt?! The process to get the hexagonal columns requires the lava flow in which they are formed in to cool very slowly.

epic

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:17:17 -0400

epic

earthshaped: Sulphur on Aragonite Matrix Casteltermini,...

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:52:40 -0400

earthshaped:

Sulphur on Aragonite Matrix

Casteltermini, Agrigento Province, Sicily, Italy

Sulphur is used to make gunpowder, which creates the bang in fireworks.

crownedrose: fallenhalfcrack: I wonder what kind of crystal...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:24:21 -0400

crownedrose:

fallenhalfcrack:

I wonder what kind of crystal this is….time to investigate!!

Hi! Saw your reblog on my dashboard and just wanted to let you know that this is the mineral Azurite. I had the information in my original post, but it seems people deleted my text before it popped up on your dashboard. Its nickname is “Velvet Beauty”.

crownedrose: This is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. It’s...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:23:09 -0400

crownedrose:

This is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. It’s full of awesome formations like hoodoos, made out of old sedimentary rock from back in the Mesozoic, and is just one crazy-awesome place to explore.

You can see some people in the bottom of the photo near the trees to give a sense of scale.

(Photo by Markusnl on Flickr)

jtotheizzoe: Crazy Science Jobs #342: Volcanologist If I were...

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 19:59:13 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Crazy Science Jobs #342: Volcanologist

If I were to make a list of “Hazardous Work Environments” that one might choose to partake in scientific research, a portal to the molten mantle of our planet might be near the top of that list. Probably right below “cloned velociraptor nursery” and above “San Andreas nitroglycerine factory”.

This clip from BBC’s “Journey to the Center of the Planet” shows a suicidal brave volcanologist venturing to the edge of a 2000 foot lava lake in Africa’s Nyiragongo volcano to collect a sample. The lava from this volcano has been clocked at 60 mph. Less than a month after this video was shot, the volcano erupted and emptied all of that burning hot death in less than an hour.

I’ll stick to the biology and leave the liquid molten rivers of deadly lava to others.

(via Boing Boing)