Martian Lakes

Posted on March 22, 2021 by brandonlipper
Illustration of what Mars may have looked like billions of years ago

With the intimate connection between water and life, the discovery and understanding of water on Mars has been a crucial point of research that is continuing to be updated. Although there is no liquid water on the surface of Mars, there is water in the form of ice in polar caps and glaciers. If all of the ice on Mars were melted, the entire planet could be covered in liquid water 10 meters in depth.1 In addition, it is possible that microscopic life could exist underneath the surface near locations of volcanic heat if there is liquid water.1

While there was previous knowledge of a potential lake underneath Mars’ surface, new information in 2020 not only supported the existence of this lake, but also the existence of three other lakes in the same area. Although the amount of salt necessary to keep water under the surface from freezing could pose an obstacle to life, the existence of liquid water on Mars could demonstrate that life exists on Mars or did exist billions of years ago.

Just this week, sources including The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune have published news regarding a leading theory on where the water on Mars went. While some of the water was split apart and sent into space (or exists as heavier deuterium that does not escape the planet as easily), most water is trapped in minerals and salts and therefore may still be on Mars (just in a useless form). Previous and current NASA rovers and orbiters found hydrated minerals, and the Perseverance Rover that landed recently will go to a river delta to look for clues regarding previous life that may have existed on the planet. Although Elon Musk joked about using nuclear bombs to thaw out the water and heat the planet, it remains to be seen if Mars will be habitable or if it already is (to other lifeforms).

[1] Bennett, Jeffery, et al. The Cosmic Perspective: The Solar System. 9th ed., Pearson, 2020.

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The Northern Lights: Mythical Explanations

Posted on March 22, 2021 by rightascensionanddeclinolan

For thousands of years, humans have looked to the sky, and every time we uncover an astronomical surprise, we try to explain it.  Today, we use the scientific method to do so; in comparison, older societies frequently created myths.  In this blog post, I am going to explore some of the myths surrounding the Northern Lights; please note that all information in this post is from this website.

THE NORSE

Vikings believed the Lights were “earthly manifestations of their gods,” and they celebrated them.  In comparison, other Norse people thought the Lights posed a danger to humanity: according to Norse mythology, the events of Ragnarök would bring about the end of the world, and some Nordic people believed the Lights were reflections of the armor of the Norse gods’ warriors, the Valkyries, fighting during Ragnarök’s battles.  From their logic, I see why they feared the Lights – if I thought the Lights resulted from presently-occurring battles over the fate of the world, I too would be scared!

THE SÁMI

The Sámi, the indigenous Finno-Ugric people, believed the Lights were dead people’s souls moving through the sky.  They feared the souls, so they tried to distance themselves from the Lights as much as possible: “waving, whistling, or singing under them would alert the lights to your presence,” and that would be bad given that they believed the Lights were something to be feared.  Some people even thought the Lights could behead living people or steal them away, kidnapping them into the sky… very scary!

THE FINNISH

The Finnish named the Lights “revontulet,” a literal translation of “fire fox.”  They believed foxes ran through the sky during the winter, and when their tails brushed past mountains, they created sparks that illuminated the sky.  A slightly different version of the story purports that fire fixes flung snowflakes into the sky when they ran, and the snow catching the moonlight created the Lights.  Either way, the Lights were not thought to be a harbinger of doom, contrasting with the Nose and Sámi people’s beliefs.

THE GREEKS AND ROMANS

The Greeks and Romans offered another positive interpretation of the Lights: the goddess Aurora, “the personification of the dawn, and the sister of the sun and the moon” rode her chariot across the sky each morning to warn her brother and sister of the impending dawn.  According to the myth, Aurora did not intend to cause harm, so the Greeks and Romans did not fear the Lights.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The Nose and Sámi believed the Lights were a bad omen, and the Finnish, Greeks, and Romans believed the Lights were not inherently bad.  If you were to have lived in a time before science could explain the Lights, how what would you have thought of them?  Would you have feared them (like the Norse and Sámi), or would you have created a positive explanation for them (like the Finnish, Greeks, and Romans)?

Photo courtesy of USA Today.
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The Star Destroyer: Supernova

Posted on March 21, 2021 by brynicdew
What Is a Supernova? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
Source

Stars take the idea of a “last hurrah” to beautifully explosive level. When a star runs out of energy and collapses, it will condense into a bundle of energy and explode. Supernovas are by far the largest explosion in the universe and can only occur to a star that is truly massive. Supernovas normally occur extremely far away, as not many of the stars close to us are capable of this massive discharge. The closest supernova in years, Supernova 1987A, was still an astonishing 168,000 light years away! However, it isn’t such a bad thing that these supernovas are occurring hundreds of thousands of light years away. For example, a supernova thirty light years away would completely destroy the ozone layer and eradicate all ocean life. In addition, the conditions may cause the nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere to combine into the poisonous nitrous oxide. A safe distance for a supernova explosion is at least 100 light years away from us. While these radiant membranes of light may looks spectacular, they can be just as easily destructive.

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Is the Moon actually made of cheese?

Posted on March 21, 2021 by brandonlipper
Highlands on left. Mare on right. Image from ESA

Unfortunately, the answer is no. However, the story of why the Moon’s surface looks the way it does it still an interesting one and one that helps us understand the solar system as a whole. The surface of the Moon most closely resembles that of Mercury (due to the lack of geological activity that comes with the lack of heat and atmosphere), but is quite unique compared to the other terrestrial planets. The Moon has sections called lunar highlands and sections called lunar maria. The lunar highlands have many craters and the areas of impact are so densely packed that there is a lot of overlap. In contrast, the lunar maria are smooth and have very few craters. This tells us a lot about the history of the Moon and of the terrestrial worlds in regard to age, temperature, and periods of bombardment. Radiometric dating showed us that the highlands are about 4.4 billion years old and the maria are between 3 and 4 billion years old.1 Thus, the relatively few impact craters on the maria reveal that extreme bombardment ended about 4 billion years ago and that the lava flow that filled craters to create the maria must have occurred after the bombardment ended. We were then able to use the above information to find the impact rate for the Moon and other terrestrial worlds. This is a helpful method for figuring out ages in the realm of terrestrials because we can perform this technique based only on the crowding of craters visible in photographs.

Although this is no longer true, the Moon once did have a hot interior. So, when large impacts during bombardment cracked the lithosphere of the Moon and radioactive decay heated the mantle, lava rose through the fractures and filled the craters with basalt (igneous rock with mafic materials). Interestingly, the far-side of the Moon looks quite different from the near-side. The near-side has a lower altitude so the lava flowed toward this side. For this reason, the far side is almost all highlands; most maria is on the near-side of the Moon (the side always facing us).

[1] Bennett, Jeffery, et al. The Cosmic Perspective: The Solar System. 9th ed., Pearson, 2020.

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The Next Ice Age?

Posted on March 21, 2021 by joeangella13
Solar minimum vs Solar maximum (SOURCE)

As we all know, the sun is an incredibly vital part of our daily lives and is the, “constant force that is keeping our planets in orbit, providing Earth with just the right amount of light and warmth for life…” and even governs our daily schedules in which we have created the concept of time in relation to the rising and setting of the sun act day. (CNN) Yet, what many may not be aware of is the fact that the sun goes through phases and changes very often. The sun is involved in an 11-year interval of energetic peaks of activity which also include low points of activity that compensate for these spikes of energy. When we are in a peak, the sun will show many more solar flares and sunspots as depicted in the picture above while in a minimum the sun is less tainted with these intense colors but results in lesser energy being generated by the sun. But the real question is, how much will this minimum affect our daily lives. Are we going into the next ice age? Well, truthfully the answer is…no chance! Because of climate change/global warming of our planet as well as numerous other factors, this minimum will not have the potential to cause any of these happenings to occur such as an ice age, but is still interesting in learning about some of the phases that the sun goes through on a yearly basis. Did you know about solar peaks and minimums before this blog? Comment down below!

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Survival Sweet Spot

Posted on March 21, 2021 by brynicdew
See the source image
Source

Earth is a perfect amalgamation of all the conditions necessary for live to thrive. I always hear that the other terrestrials cannot sustain life, but never exactly sure how unsuitable they were. I mean if there was only one thing wrong with them, who’s to say we wouldn’t be able to invent a solution in the next 20 years? Expectedly, there are many big faults for each planet, however some of these problems were not what I expected. For example, the distance from the Sun. The Earth at 1 AU is the perfect distance from the sun. However, it is feasible for life to sustain at anywhere from 0.7 AU to 2.0 AU. Venus at 0.72 AU barely falls into the range, while Mars comfortably sits inside at 1.5 AU. The only terrestrial eliminated by this condition is Mercury, at a minuscule 0.4 AU.

The main problem between the remaining two terrestrials are there atmospheres. The Earth has atmospheric layers primarily consisting of N2 and O2, which are not very good at absorbing sunlight and keep the surface cool. Venus has an incredibly thick atmosphere that contains mostly C2, which is very good at absorbing sunlight. This causes the surface of Venus to be blisteringly hot. This is also the reason why water cannot exist on Venus, as any water would instantly be boiled into gas and the hydrogen atoms would flow into space. The Martian atmosphere, on the other hand, is far too weak. While some spots of Mars remain comfortably above freezing, water would still boil on Mars due to the low atmospheric pressure. Mars cannot retain a large enough atmosphere due to its small size.

Overall, there may be MANY reasons why colonizing any other planet is a dream of the future.

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No sunspots on the Sun?

Posted on March 21, 2021 by connorrobbwilcox

Have you ever seen pictures of the Sun and noticed that it has dark spots on its surface? These sunspots are cooler than the other regions on the Sun, but they also represent the beginning of new solar cycles. In fact, some signs point to the next cycle, Cycle 25, having a much smaller number of sunspots than previously seen. But what does this mean for the Sun and its cycles? And how does this affect the Earth?

No, it doesn’t mean there won’t be another solar cycle. However, this could potentially happen as there are many unforeseen circumstances. But for right now, it means that the Sun is at its most quiet, that is it’s at its most inactive. The sun has a weaker magnetic field, meaning that fewer cosmic rays are deflected and do not reach Earth as well as the other planets as much, thus not affecting the solar system with its solar ejections. As for what it means for the Earth, satellite communications and technology because of the lack of solar storm blackouts. In addition to this, questions arise whether other aspects of Earth could be affected, such as the temperature of the Earth, the weather, and the climate. There is no evidence for this, but scientists have only one way to find out if Earth’s climate is changed. What do you think? Do you think this could be connected to Earth’s temperature cooling in the future? Let me know!

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The Carrington Event: What would happen today?

Posted on March 21, 2021 by connorrobbwilcox
solar coronal mass ejection (CME)

The Carrington Event, named due to astronomer Robert Carrington observing that the phenomenon derived from the Sun, was an extremely powerful geomagnetic storm occurring on September 1-2, 1859. Earth’s magnetosphere was hit by a solar coronal mass ejection, or CME, from sunspots, causing auroras to light up Earth’s sky, telegraph and other communication to fail, and sparks showering from machines. This led many to think that the end of the world was at hand. With primitive forms of technology and little knowledge of the solar system this makes sense, but what would happen if we were hit by the same storm today?

Much like the results of the past, there would be incredible aurora occurring across the globe, but this time we would have the northern and southern lights almost switching places. Northern aurora would be lighting up the sky as far south as Hawaii and Cuba, while the southern lights would be as far north as mid-South America. In addition to this, if another CME hit us our whole infrastructure would stop. Our advanced technology, especially satellite communication systems and GPS would be uttered useless, hurting the economy by an untold degree. What is most at stake, experts believe is the electrical power grid being shut down. Cities throughout the world would be without power for weeks, maybe even months, ultimately trickling down to the rest of the world’s civilizations and infrastructure. It really shows how dependent upon technology our society has become. For more information on this topic, visit this article from National Geographic. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this will happen? If so, when? Do you think we should start preparing better right now? Let me know in the comments below.

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BepiColombo and Learning about Mercury

Posted on March 21, 2021 by laineroberts

As discussed in chapter 9 of our textbook, scientists still have a lot to learn about Mercury, especially since it doesn’t seem to follow quite the same patterns that most of the planets in our solar system follow, studying the planet could possibly help scientists to gain a better understanding of planets outside of our own solar system. The BepiColombo space mission launched two spacecrafts towards Mercury in 2018, one provided by Japan and the other from Europe. Since it consists of two spacecrafts, BepiColombo will be able to perform two types of research at once. One spacecraft is designated to studying Mercury’s magnetic field while the other will study its surface and interior. BepiColombo is scheduled to enter Mercury’s orbit in 2025! Do you think that scientists will make any surprising discoveries about Mercury through this mission?

BepiColombo
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Aurora Borealis

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Mykayla
“Northern Lights”

Aurora borealis, or the “Northern lights,” as it is often called, is the result of our Earth’s magnetosphere deflecting harmful particles from the Sun from the Earth. They can best be seen from the Arctic Circle (Canada, Iceland, Finland, etc.). Every aurora in the solar system originates from the Sun. Periodically, the Sun has storms which eject harmful radiation from its surface and hurdle it toward the Earth. Because of the Earth’s composition (solid metal core surrounded by molten metal), the Earth has a magnetosphere. This magnetosphere creates a “shield” that stands between us and the Sun so that the dangerous radiation will not permeate the atmosphere and cause damage to life on Earth. However, some particles from the Sun are drawn to the magnetic poles, where the particles interact with the nitrogen and oxygen atoms by causing the electrons to jump up in energy level. Then the electron releases this energy in the form of a photon–usually green colored, but sometimes deep blue, purple, or light red. This happens all across the sky, creating the beautiful waves that we see and call “aurora.”

The northern lights are not just a coincidence. Instead of simply a byproduct of this Sun-magnetosphere process, I consider aurora to be a statement from God that our Earth is not an accident. In His infinite wisdom, God created the Earth with its complexities, including designing it so that the core and movement of the Earth would create a magnetosphere to protect us from the harmful radiation of the Sun, allowing the helpful rays of the Sun to pass through. And in the meantime, He allowed us to see it in action through the northern lights! Their beauty is a reminder of His protection. He knew what He was doing when He set the Earth in its place. Our planet is perfectly suited for life. And though God could have given us only the basic necessities for life, He didn’t stop there. This Earth is full of majesty, awe, wonder, and beauty that only a majestic, awesome, wonderful, beautiful ARTIST could design. Earth was built in all of its abundance to provide for our needs and allow us to flourish as we enjoy the simple practicality as well as the masterfully crafted complexity of creation.

Have you ever seen aurora borealis? Did you know how it happened, or has it been a mystery to you until now? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

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