How to Hunt for Distant Worlds

Since the discovery of the first planet orbiting a Sun-like star in 1995, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been found. These widespread planetary systems confirm that our solar system is just one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery of such systems provided intriguing insights, challenging our perspectives about how planetary systems form and evolve. But how do astronomers search for these exoplanets and what can we find out about them? Join Dr. Rickman as she describes the scientific hunt for these distant worlds.

The lecture starts at about 13:30 minutes in after all the news updates.

Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute Recorded live on Tuesday, June 1, 2021 More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Very interesting lecture, some of this has been talked about before however it is always good to listen to different explanations of the same topics. The upcoming JWST is hopefully going to open up a lot more discoveries.

The lecture makes reference to the discovery of the moons around Jupiter with the first telescope. Which really puts in to context how quickly things have moved on. First exoplanet was found in 1992, but only recently has the number found increased.

Links at the end to the zooniverse project, two of these projects are to do with searching for exo-planets so this gives citizens a chance to take part (and get cited) in real research.

• Space Telescope Science Institute
• Lecture info page
• Discourse Discussion

#Space,#Science,#Telescope,#TheHuntForDistanceWorlds,#STSCI,#stsci

FutureLearn course

I am just starting “Astronomy and Space Physics: Teaching Secondary Science”. This is to help me gain more familiarity on what is taught in secondary school science. Hopefully I can find employment to support the curriculum in some capacity.

It is important to be 'pro-active' in this, gain new skills and show you are willing to learn, develop and research content.

I feel that I have a lot to offer, so hopefully I will be able to make a positive contribution one day.

REFERENCES

• FutureLearn
• Course

TAGS

#School,#Education,#UnitedKingdom,#Science,#Physics,#Space

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Open Insulin

If anyone tells you that there is nothing interesting on the Fediverse, then they probably have never used it. I found this earlier,

The Open Insulin Foundation is a non-profit creating the means for communities in-need to have local sources of safe, affordable, high-quality insulin.

I feel this project is well worth checking out and if possible supporting. Lets help more people world wide and reduce the medical divide that is clearly happening.

This was posted by Hacker News Tooter

REFERENCES

• Open Insulin

TAGS

#Science,#Medication,#Insulin,#OpenInsulin

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Biotechnology Definition

As I have been making posts on the various webinars I have been attending. I decided to make a post to point to the definition of Biotechnology. This is for informational reasons. Included links to a few forms too.

REFERENCES

• Definition
• Scismic
• ScienceDaily
• arXiv
• Tuxiversity Forum
• Discourse Forum
• Science forums

TAGS

#Scismic,#BioTechnology,#Science,#Biology,#Research

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Physics on the curriculum

Just been looking through my Physics world [1] article archive and came across this from August 2020 [2]. This is looking at how Physics is taught, the lack of recent discoveries included in the curriculum and how this could be linked to a lower interest in studying Physics further.

REFERENCES

• Physics World
• Physics on the curriculum article
• Discourse Discussion

TAGS

#Science,#Physics,#Education,#UK,#Curriculum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Dark Energy Survey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57244708

REFERENCES

• Dark Energy Survey
• Science Daily Article

TAGS

#Science,#Astronomy,#DarkEnergy,#DarkEnergySurvey#Survey,#Physics

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Standard Cosmological Model

This was posted to Twitter earlier by Peter Coles [1]. Interesting blog post about the Cosmological model [2], a link to a paper on arXiv [3]. I have also started a discussion on discourse [4].

A few interesting ideas presented here. The nice thing about these papers is that you can then look at references and find a whole new set of papers go read through on related subjects. You sort of fall down the rabbit hole with this.

All we need now is a club similar to CoderDojo where we can get together and discuss. Would need to be open to ALL ages though. This is something that my Study Support group could do though.

REFERENCES

1 Peter Coles 2 Blog post 3. arXiv Paper 4. Discourse post

TAGS

#Science,#Physics,#Astronomy,#Cosmology, #StandardCosmologicalModel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Muon g-2 experiment finds strong evidence for new physics

Just sharing this video posted by Fermilab to dioide.zone on Peertube. This is a really nice, beginner friendly explanation.

The first results from the Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermilab show fundamental particles called muons behaving in a way not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. Announced on April 7, 2021, these results confirm and strengthen the findings of an earlier experiment of the same name performed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Combined, the two results show strong evidence that our best theoretical model of the subatomic world is incomplete. One potential explanation would be the existence of undiscovered particles or forces. This video explains what a muon is, how the Muon g-2 experiment works, and the significance of this result.

REFERENCES

• Discourse Discussion
• Fermilab channel
• Diode zone
• @opensciencevids@tilvids.com
• Muon g-2 first results press release:
• Fermilab home page:

• Muon g-2:

• Link to video page on diode.zone

Also discuss further on IRC ##physics on freenode

TAGS

#Physics,#muon,#New,#Discovery,#Science,#StandardModel,#g-2,#Experiment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Spacefarers: How Humans Will Settle the Moon, Mars, and Beyond : Writeup

6th April

Speaker: Christopher Wanjek Description: More than 50 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, why is there so little human presence in space? Will we ever reach Mars? What will it take to become a multi-planet species, colonizing the Solar System and travelling to other stars?

With details here

Write up.

This was another really interesting, thought provoking lecture presented by Christopher Wanjek

The lecture started at about 15:30 in to the video after Frank has given his introduction, details of upcoming lectures and also an update on space news.

So some of the items covered were the cost and difficulty of getting off Earth in to space, then on to the Moon, very expensive. However once there, we are not out of the woods, the lunar surface is bombarded with radiation, the moon dust itself is toxic, growing food would need to be undertaken under artificial light, due to the radiation.

As the temperature on the moon can fluctuate between -200 and +200 F then one course of action for establishing some sort of presence on the moon would be the poles, where the temperature is a “cold, but workable” -50c.

We can harvest ice to produce Water, which can also be converted in to Hydrogen and Oxygen,

Christopher also then looked at how we can develop science on the Moon, Geology, Biology.

A look at gravity and how much humans rely on Gravity and how this can perhaps be created artificially.

The European Space Agency are looking at sending pods to the moon, build something before we go, I think it was also suggested we need to cover any buildings with moon dust, in order to provide full shielding from radiation. This apparently needs to be about 1 meter thick layer. Bare in mind that the dust is like Asbestos. Getting around and some transportation systems were suggested.

We may need to live in caves as these would be a constant temperature and a shield against radiation.

Space tourism could potentially be a huge industry As We are unable to have children on the Moon (something to do with gravity) then building cities may not be practical.

So on to Mars

Firstly getting there is dangerous, we are potentially exposed to radiation over a long period of time, once there the surface is still bombarded with radiation and there are dust storms to contend with, However it was suggested we could live in caves

One way of protecting us from radiation is to use Boron Nitriade, as boron can absorb secondary particles .

Mars surface has toxic components, so we may have to grow food under LED lights.

So lots to think about, lots of challenges a head so a great time to discuss more, study science and help work on the solutions needed.

A lot more was discussed including design of space suits,

Thank you for reading, worth checking out the video and the book Spacefarers by Christopher.

You can find more upcoming (monthly) lectures below.

• http://www.stsci.edu/public-lectures
• Virtual Astronomy Club
• Discourse Discussion
• Open University

#video,#astronomy,#space,#science,#stsci