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Science

NASA Reveals Ambitious New Plan to Detect Signs of Life on Distant Planets

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NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts is famous for supporting outlandish ideas in the astronomy and space exploration fields. Since being re-established in 2011, the institute has supported a wide variety of projects as part of its three-phase program.

 

However, so far, only three projects have gone on to receive Phase III funding. And one of those just released a white paper describing a mission to get a telescope that could effectively see biosignatures on nearby exoplanets by utilizing the gravitational lens of our own Sun.

That Phase III distinction comes with US$2 million in funding, which in the case went to JPL, whose scientist, Slava Turyshev, was the principal investigator on the project’s first two phases.

He teamed up with The Aerospace corporation for this latest white paper, which describes a mission concept in more detail and defines what technologies already exist and what needs further development.

However, there are several striking features of this mission design, one of which is touched on in detail over at Centauri Dreams.

Instead of launching a large craft that would take a long time to travel anywhere, the proposed mission would launch several small cube-sats and then self-assemble on the 25-year journey out to the solar gravitational lens (SGL) point.

That “point” is actually a straight line between whatever star the exoplanet is around and somewhere between 550-1000 AU on the other side of the Sun. That is a tremendous distance, much further than the measly 156 AU that Voyager 1 has so far taken 44 years to traverse.

 

So how could a spacecraft get to three times the distance while taking almost half the time? Simple – it will dive (almost) into the Sun.

Using a gravitational boost from the Sun is a tried and true method. The fastest human-made object ever, the Parker Solar Probe, used just such a technique.

However, being boosted to 25 AU a year, the expected speed at which this mission would have to travel isn’t easy. And it would be even more challenging for a fleet of ships rather than just a single one.

The first problem would be material – solar sails, which are the mission’s preferred method of propulsion, don’t do so well when subjected to the intensity of the Sun that would be required for a gravitational slingshot.

In addition, the electronics on the system would have to be much more radiation hardened than currently existing tech. However, both of these known problems have potential solutions under active research.

Another seemingly obvious problem would be how to coordinate a passage of multiple satellites through this sort of gut-wrenching gravitational maneuver and still allow them to coordinate joining up to effectively form a fully functional spacecraft in the end.

 

But according to the paper’s authors, there will be more than enough time on the 25-year journey out to the observational point to actively rejoin the single Cubesats into a cohesive whole.

What could result from that cohesive whole is a better image of an exoplanet that humanity is likely to get short of a fully-fledged interstellar mission.

Which exoplanet would be the best candidate would be a topic of hot debate if the mission moves forward, as more than 50 so far have been found in the habitable zones of their stars. But that is certainly no guarantee as yet.

The mission hasn’t received any funding nor any indication that it will do so in the near future. And plenty of technologies would still have to be developed before such a mission would even be feasible. 

But that is precisely how such missions always start, and this one has more potential impact than most. With luck, at some point in the next few decades, we would receive as crisp of an image of a potentially habitable exoplanet as we are likely to receive in the even medium future.

The team behind this research deserves praise for laying the groundwork for such an idea in the first place.

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

 

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World

China-Taiwan tensions are raising fears of a conflict. In Taipei, however, people don’t seem worried

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But at a park in the Taiwanese capital on Thursday, the topic of conversation was about anything but the potential for conflict between Beijing and the island it considers part of its territory.

Huang and Chang, both grandmothers in their 80s, said they had spent the morning with friends chatting about snacks, tea and whether they should do some exercise.

War is not something they worry about, they said.

“We don’t worry about it at all. The threat has always been there and there’s nothing to worry about. If it were going to happen, it would’ve had happened a long time ago,” said Huang, who said she preferred to be called Grandma Huang.

Their relaxed attitude stands in stark contrast to recent military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and terse statements from leaders in mainland China and Taiwan, which have been governed separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago.

So far in October alone, Beijing has sent more than 150 warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), breaking daily records for such incursions, which Taipei has vowed to respond to with radio warnings, anti-aircraft missile tracking or fighter jet intercepts.

On October 9, Chinese President Xi Jinping — who has refused to rule out military force to capture Taiwan if necessary — said “reunification” between China and Taiwan was inevitable.

A day later, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said Taipei would not bow to pressure from Beijing. “Nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us,” she said, adding that the future of the democratic island should be decided by its 24 million people.

“We are all Chinese”

Taiwanese and US officials have publicly estimated that Beijing could have the capacity to invade the island within the next six years.

But on the streets of Taipei, the mood this week was mostly relaxed and confident. While a few people said they were a bit worried about threats of forced “reunification” by Beijing, many believed the Chinese government would never really go ahead with it.

“I think mainland China and Taiwan have always co-existed peacefully. There are Taiwanese people in mainland China, and there are mainland people here in Taiwan. We are all Chinese people,” said Vicky Tsai, 38, a market trader in Taipei.

The trader said military tensions didn’t really have much impact on most people’s daily lives, dismissing them as “games played by the upper class.” “I think it is more important to earn money,” she said.

Incursions by China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force into Taiwan’s ADIZ have become so routine in fact — nearly 400 since May, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry — that the sorties rarely even make front page news domestically.

“A battle of psychology”

Liu Ting-ting, who reports on the military for Taiwan’s TVBS News channel, said although tensions were rising in the region, it didn’t affect daily life.

“People are more concerned as to … whether they can put food on the table,” she said.

Liu said while she had no doubt there was a possibility Beijing might try to take Taiwan by force if it felt it had no other option, the people of the island “have no say in that.”

“There’s nothing they can do about it,” she said.

Liu described China’s military sorties as a “battle of psychology.” She said that while both Beijing and Taipei were trying to project military power, it appeared that China was aiming to instil fear in Taiwanese people.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged China to stop military activity around Taiwan and reiterated the US’ commitment to the island, calling it “rock solid.”

Asked whether they believed the US would help Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, opinion was divided among Taiwanese people interviewed by CNN.

Lisu Su, 34, the owner of a herbal tea shop, said Taiwan’s “strategic position” meant the US would have to help defend the island.

“As long as Taiwan does not give up on itself and has a strong defense ability, I think the United States will definitely help,” he said.

Huang and Chang, the octogenarians, were more circumspect. While they said they didn’t want a war, both believed that any potential invasion was beyond the control of the Taiwanese people.

“If it’s bound to happen, it doesn’t make a difference whether you worry about it or not,” Huang said.

Gladys Tsai contributed to this report.

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Science

Feast Your Eyes on the 12 Winning Astronomy Photographer of the Year Images

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Leonardo Di Maggio’s “Celestial Fracture” depicts many different split bits of Saturn.
Image: Leonardo Di Maggio

There were two joint winners for the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation, both of which used inventive techniques in their compositions. One of them—“Celestial Fracture” by Leonardo Di Maggio—is an assembly of images of Saturn, its moons, and its rings. All the images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft between 2004 and 2007. Together, the images are a peculiar combination of straight lines (mostly from the rings) and curves (from the planet’s spherical shape). All in black and white, they allow the viewer to focus on the planet’s geometries without being distracted by its colors.

“A spectacular dance between science and art,” said Imad Ahmed, a competition judge and the director of the New Crescent Society, in a Royal Observatory Greenwich statement. “We associate Saturn with its timeless rings, but the quasi-cubist treatment, with its awkward angles, offered a refreshing perspective that really captured the judges’ imagination.”

A dazzling panorama of Jupiter’s bands.
Image: Sergio Díaz Ruiz

The other winner is “Another Cloudy Day on Jupiter” by Sergio Díaz Ruiz of Spain. The image’s name pretty much speaks for itself: It’s a close-up look at a tranche of our favorite gas giant, a slurry of orange, rust, and off-white whorls. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on a number of different channels and color edited.

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Health

In Surprise Twist, COVID-19 Can Cause Weird Skin Rashes. Here’s What to Look Out For

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The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, a dry cough, and losing your sense of taste and smell. Other signs that are frequently seen include headaches, muscle and joint pain, nasal congestion, and fatigue.

 

A less common symptom are rashes of various forms. These have been slower to be reported, partly due to the wide variety that have appeared in COVID-19 patients, making it more challenging to establish a consistent correlation.

Nevertheless, knowing how COVID-19 affects the skin is important. A recent study found that for 17 percent of COVID-19 patients with multiple symptoms, skin rashes were the first symptom to appear, while for 21 percent of patients rashes were their only symptom.

Being able to identify the effects of COVID-19 on the skin may allow cases to be spotted earlier – or even picked up altogether in people who are otherwise asymptomatic. This could help limit transmission.

With that in mind, here are the four main types of skin changes to look out for, and the possible reasons why they occur.

Chilblain-like lesions

These are red, swollen or blistering skin lesions that affect mainly the toes and soles of the feet, colloquially known as “COVID toes”. Over the course of one to two weeks, the lesions will become even more discoloured and will flatten, and after this they will spontaneously resolve without treatment.

A substantial number of these lesions have been seen, primarily in adolescents and young adults with no or only mild symptoms of COVID-19. They make up the majority of skin issues associated with the virus. In two international reports on different types of suspected COVID-related skin conditions, around 60 percent of patients with skin complaints reported these lesions.

 

However, given these lesions correlate with mild disease, many of the patients with them in these studies didn’t qualify for a COVID-19 test at the time, and 55 percent were otherwise asymptomatic.

So while the swift rise of these lesions during the pandemic suggests they’re associated with COVID-19, direct confirmation of this hasn’t been established. It’s possible they’re caused by some other related factor.

Exactly when they appear is also somewhat unclear. In a study analysing 26 patients with suspected COVID-related skin changes, 73 percent presented with chilblain-like lesions. None of the patients had respiratory symptoms and they were all COVID-negative at the onset of their lesions. An explanation is that these lesions appear only after a long delay – up to 30 days after infection.

The cause of these lesions has been debated. A possible culprit could be type 1 interferons, proteins that regulate the antiviral properties of the immune system.

The theory is that high production of these interferons might result in patients rapidly clearing the coronavirus, but also cause injury to blood vessels and increased inflammation. This would explain the coincidence of mild or nonexistent disease, negative tests and skin damage.

 

Another theory concerns ACE2, the molecule that the coronavirus uses to get inside cells. It is present on many types of cell, including those in the sweat glands, which are common on the palms of the hand and soles of the feet. This could make these areas particularly vulnerable to damage from the virus.

Or, it could be that damage to blood vessels, caused either by the immune response or the virus, leads to cell death and multiple mini blood clots in the toes.

Maculopapular rash

This term describes both flat and raised areas of discoloured skin. A study of 375 patients in Spain found that 47 percent of patients with COVID-related skin changes had this kind of rash.

These were associated with more severe COVID-19 symptoms, and were mainly found on the trunk in middle-aged to elderly patients. They tended to last 7-18 days, appearing 20-36 days after infection.

A suggested cause is the body’s immune system going into overdrive. In some patients, a hyperinflammatory phase occurs 7-10 days after infection, which leads to tissue damage and, potentially, more severe disease and death.

 

Hives

Also known as urticaria, these are raised areas of itchy skin. In a study involving four hospitals in China and Italy, 26 percent of COVID-19 patients that complained of skin changes presented with hives.

Hives typically precede or present at the same time as other symptoms, making them useful for diagnosis. They are more common among middle-aged patients and are associated with more severe disease. Viral infections are a known trigger of hives, as they cause the breakdown of cells and the release of histamine through a cascade of reactions in the immune system.

However, it’s important to remember that hives are also a noted side-effect of many drugs that have been used to treat COVID-19, such as corticosteroids and remdesevir.

Vesicular lesions

These are clear fluid-filled sacs under the skin, similar to those seen in chicken pox. They are less common compared to the skin conditions above: in the previously mentioned Spanish study of skin changes associated with COVID-19, only 9 percent of patients had these vesicles.

However, they are thought to be a more specific indication of someone having COVID-19 than those already listed, and so are more useful for diagnosis. They appear to present in patients with mild disease around 14 days after infection.

It’s thought that they’re caused by prolonged inflammation, with antibodies attacking the skin and damaging its layers, resulting in fluid-filled sacs.

Vassilios Vassiliou, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiovascular Medicine, University of East Anglia and Subothini Sara Selvendran, Visiting Researcher in Medicine, University of East Anglia.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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