Dark Matter Detected?

Due a lack of exciting confirmed astronomy news lately, here is a piece discussing the potential detection of the dark matter candidates, WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).

A team in Italy, working on the DAMA/LIBRA experiment claims they have detected WIMPS, which may be anything from neutrinos to unknown particles. They attempt to detect a change in dark matter flux as the Earth travels around the sun, by looking for the recoil of electrons and nuclei in their detector due to the particles. They first have to remove detections, such as cosmic rays, due to other events, before they can analyze the data. As is pointed out in the aforementioned link, the found fluctuation is extremely small, and is not definitively due to dark matter at all.

Fix to "brain farts"?

Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway have found that the brains of volunteers have exhibited abnormal behavior up to 30 seconds before "brain farts". They hope that this knowledge will enable future devices to correct for potentially fatal human errors, such as those that lead to car accidents or industrial accidents. The only problem is that the research was done using a functional MRI, which requires one to be lying down in a tube to use.

Pennsylvania Primaries

There are just over 7.5 hours until the polls open in Pennsylvania for the primary elections. Hillary came to Penn State yesterday, and only managed to draw a crowd of 1500 (Bill's crowd was 8000 when he came a few weeks ago, and Obama got 22,000). I was impressed with how well thought-out Hillary's plans seemed to be as she outlined them yesterday, and her most memorable quote was "When the cameras disappear and the lights are turned off, you're electing a president to solve problems, not give speeches".

There is no question Penn State students are for Obama, and Philadelphia will probably go Obama, but beyond that, this primary seems to be up in the air. I think Clinton's poll numbers are most likely inflated, due to the underestimated youth vote (many young people don't have landlines to answer polls), and even though the margin is at an estimated 5% in favor of Clinton, the race may be close to call.

lunar telescope

Lunar telescopes have been proposed in the past. Naturally, the biggest obstacles are price, and how one could transport such a large device while requiring minimum setup time once at the moon. The Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer (DALI) would look far back into the universe using radio waves, to the cosmic dark ages, before the existence of stars. The only data that may be recorded from this time are the spin-flips of hydrogen atoms. Such measurements are not possible from Earth due to interference from man-made radio signals, but would be possible with this hypothetical interferometer on the far side of the moon.

moon plants?

An ESA team has announced that they have come closer to terraforming the moon. The team planted marigolds in anorthosite, a mineral commonly found on the moon's surface, discovering that the plants did not need plant food to survive. With pure anorthosite, the plants did not grow, but upon the introduction of bacteria, they thrived.

This seems to be a step in the right direction in preparation for the day when a doomsday asteroid does actually strike Earth. Earlier today there were false reports that the Apophis asteroid, set to approach Earth in 2036, had 1 in 450 odds of impacting the planet. The odds are actually 1 in 45,000 (the reports claimed NASA's initial calculations were wrong, and were corrected by a 13 year-old German boy).

animals in space

Friday Russia commemorated the first dog in space, Laika, who traveled into space 50 years ago, on November 3rd, 1957. She did not survive the endeavor; several hours into the flight she died from stress and overheating, most likely due to a failure in the thermal control system (temperatures reached 104 F). Even if she had survived the heat, the Soviets did not plan for reentry of the spacecraft; she was supposed to be euthanized by poisoned food.

Many animals who went to space died in orbit or shortly after returning to Earth, although some did survive, including a dog Strelka, whose pup was a gift from Khruschev to Caroline Kennedy. A Wikipedia article on all animals who have gone to space is here.

smallest extrasolar planet found

A team from Spain's Superior Council for Scientific Investigations, led by Ignasi Ribas, announced today that they have discovered the smallest known extrasolar planet. The planet, GJ 436c, has a radius 150% of the size of the Earth, and weights five times as much as the Earth. At 5 solar masses, it is a rocky planet.

The planet orbits a red dwarf star 30 light years away in Leo. Like the discovery of Neptune, this planet was found by looking at gravitational perturbations of a nearby planet in the same solar system. Unfortunately the planet is outside of the habitable zone, with years merely 5 Earth days in length. However, this technique of planet finding promises to find Earth-sized planets soon, and perhaps even those in a more habitable range.