The Silver Ink

Saturday, February 27, 2021
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World’s largest asteroid impact zone unearthed in Australia

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Asteroid-Earth-Australia-double-impact-565930

We have very often heard about asteroids, but it was never before when we have got opportunity to witness their bigger impacts.

The researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) have discovered an asteroid impact zone in central Australia which is approximately 248 miles wide.

According to the scientists, the twin-impact zone of central Australia is the consequence of an asteroid that is believed to have broken in half just before hitting the planet Earth.

The impact zone was unearthed by the ANU researchers’ team while they were conducting geothermal research that included drilling process.

The remnants of the impact that includes free rock which was turned into glass inside the Earth’s crust were found during the drilling by the researchers.

Andrew Glikson, lead study investigator and a professor at the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, said, “The two asteroids must each have been more than 10 kilometres across. It would have been curtains for many life species on the Earth at the time.”

The scientists don’t know have enough information about how long ago the asteroid impact actually occurred, but they are of the belief that the celestial event was so strong and powerful that it could have caused a mass extinction.

Glikson believes the asteroid hit the planet roughly 300 million years ago. The scientists, however, haven’t found a known extinction that can be linked to the impact zone.

“At this stage, we do not have all the answers, but there has been a lot of interest, and people are certainly interested in any impact on the dinosaurs,” Glikson said.

Concluding the study’s results, he said, “As we are clueless about the age of this asteroid impact, we are working on it.”

The findings of the study were detailed this week in the journal Tectonophysics.

Study suggests stars generate sound and sing

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starsAccording to study published in journal Physical Review Letters, scientists have discovered singing stars.

Scientists of the University of York when examining the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target they realized that in the trillionth of a second after the laser strikes, the plasma rapidly flows from high density to low density regions, in such a way that they cause a traffic jam at the interface between low and high density regions generating series of pressure pulses a sound wave

The sound generated was at a high frequency. It was six times higher than what any mammal can hear.

The frequency of nearly trillion hertz, it was the highest frequency possible in such a material

The technique used by the scientist allows them to analyze how the fluid moved when it is struck by a laser; it is just like the police speeding cameras.

The study of fluids in motion is known as hydrodynmaics.

Dr. Pasley one of the scientist said, “One of the few locations in nature where we believe this effect would occur is at the surface of stars. When they are accumulating new material stars could generate sound in a very similar manner to that which we observed in the laboratory—so the stars might be singing—but, since sound cannot propagate through the vacuum of space, no-one can hear them.”

“It was initially hard to determine the origin of the acoustic signals, but our model produced results that compared favorably with the wavelength shifts observed in the experiment. This showed that we had discovered a new way of generating sound from fluid flows. Similar situations could occur in plasma flowing around stars.” said Dr. Alex Robinson from the Plasma Physics Group at STFC’s Central Laser Facility who has developed a numerical model to develop acoustics for the experiment.

Jupiter may have destroyed the inner solar system

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jupiterAccording to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planets in our solar system are actually a second generation with the first generation of orbiting planets being destroyed.

It is said that the gas giant Jupiter before orbiting in its current state has invaded the early inner solar system and sweeped away all the planets orbiting in the inner solar system.

The scientist could possibly explain why our solar system is differently constituted when compared to other planetary system orbiting different stars.

Planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin at the California Institute of Technology said, “indeed, it appears that the solar system today is not the common representative of the galactic planetary census, instead we are something of an outlier.”

According to him in all the other planetary system there are planets which are very close to sun and if that is considered normal then our planetary system should also have planets which are closer to sun than Mercury.

In other planetary system there are few super earth rock like worlds which are about 10 times the size of the earth and they are orbiting closer to the sun than Mercury. They also posses’ gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn but they are very close to sun rather than far from the star like in our solar system.

This makes our solar system look odd, said the other astronomer.

The theory which is supporting our solar system being unique is the Grand Track theory.

According to this theory Jupiter after its formation got pulled towards the sun and caught up in the pull of interplanetary dust and went rampaging through inner solar system and when Saturn caught it in its own gravitational pull the rampage ended and they pulled each other to occupy their current positions.

Jupiter could have disrupted the orbits of the protoplanets, which led to a chain reaction of destructive collision. This debris could have destroyed planets caught up in Jupiter’s rampage.

“It’s the same thing we worry about if satellites were to be destroyed in low-Earth orbit,” says Laughlin, he further explained how this chain of reactions could cause the debris to crash into other satellites.

He finally concluded by saying “Our work indicates that Jupiter would have created just such a collisional cascade in the inner solar system.”

Climate change, pollution boosting potency of airborne allergens: Study

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climate change

A new study has found there exists certain types of air pollutants in the atmosphere associated with the daily traffic that can trigger chemical changes in airborne allergens and boost their potency.

According to the researchers, the air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone and other gases, can instigate changes chemically in certain airborne allergens.

The findings of the study could help in properly explaining the phenomenon behind increase in the airborne allergies.

Allergies linked with airborne factors are forcing more and more people to sniffle, sneeze and wheeze during the allergy season.

Ulrich PAschl, researcher from Max Planck Institute in Germany, said, “Scientists have long suspected that air pollution and climate change are involved in the increasing prevalence of allergies worldwide. But understanding the underlying chemical processes behind this phenomenon has proven elusive.”

“The research work is in preliminary stage, but it does begin to suggest how chemical modifications in allergenic proteins are affecting allergenicity,” Posch said.

During the study, the researchers analysed how air pollutants related traffic could raise the strength of the allergens.

In laboratory tests and computer simulations, the researchers analysed the effects of various levels of nitrogen dioxide and ozone on the biggest birch pollen allergen, known as Bet v 1.

The researchers found that ozone, which is the main component of smog, oxidizes an amino acid known as tyrosine that helps form Bet v 1 proteins.

This change sets in motion a chain of chemical reactions involving reactive oxygen intermediates that can bind the proteins together, leading to the alteration of their structures as well as their potential biological effects.

The researchers noted that the cross-linked proteins can become more potent allergens with this occurrence.

They also discovered that nitrogen dioxide, which is a component of automobile exhaust, seems altering the binding and polarity capabilities of Bet v 1 allergenic proteins.

According to the study, this along with the effects of ozone likely enhances the immune response of the body to these particles, particularly in wet, humid and smoggy environments.

The findings of the study were presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

spring is getting 30 seconds shorter everyday

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springThe spring which began at 6:20 PM EDT on Friday March 20, according to researches it is getting 30 seconds shorter each year due to the movement of the Earth’s axis, which gives half a minute to Summer each year

Earth is tilted at an axis of 23.5 degrees and this is the reason why we see seasons on earth. For the six months of the year northern hemisphere leans slightly towards the sun and for the next 6 months the southern hemisphere slightly leans towards the sun.

Spring occurs with the vernal equinox where the axis of the earth is not near to the sun as in the summer and nor away from the sun as in the winter. So this is the reason why we have equal days and nights in vernal equinox.

Spring has been losing time in the northern hemisphere for the past several years.

Larry Gerstman, an amateur astronomer in New York said that this year the longest season was the summer season with 93.65 days then the spring with 92.76 days, autumn with 89.84 days and winter with 88.99 days.

As the years pass by spring will lose its time to summer, winter will be losing time to autumn.

China’s weather officials warns climate change would have huge impact

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pollutionThe climate change could have a great impact on the country said the Zheng Gougang, chief of the China’s Metrological Administration.

He further added that the global climate change will create unstable rivers, lead to ecological degradation and reduce the crop yield.

China is world’s largest source of carbon dioxide which is one of the important greenhouse gases, and Zheng called china to take low carbon development path.

The temperature in china are increasing at a faster level and it is higher than global average, and such a rate of increase is not seen in any country

This will have an adverse impact not only on the environment but also on the infrastructural projects like the Three Gorges Dam.

‘Tide of the century’ attracts thousands of tourists at Mont Saint-Michel

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MONTSAINTMICHEL

The water level of Atlantic Ocean was raised high as Mont Saint-Michel on Saturday received its “tide of the century”, creating a spectacular sight for the thousands of tourists.

Mont Saint-Michel, a granite island in the midst of a bay in northwestern France, received the biggest tide in the century that grew as high as a four-story building.

The tide grew to the height of an estimated maximum of 14.6 metres. The footbridge, which has been designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1979, connecting the French coast with Mont Saint-Michel was wholly submerged in to waters for the first time in this millennium.

According to the researchers, the supertide is likely to be witnessed again in the year 2033 as it repeats itself in nearly every 18 years.

The monster-like supertide earned the attraction tens of thousands of tourists and adventure lovers.

The natural event turned tragic for two men who lost their lives after being drown near Rocher de Saint-Nicolas and Ile Grande. According to the eye witnesses, they were apparently swallowed up by the rising ocean water levels.

Besides contemplating the magnificent seascape dotted with improvised islets, visitors could enjoy the

With the “tide of the century”, the adventure lovers also took the best out of the rare opportunity when they had rare glimpse of marine creatures, such as shellfish, turtles, clams, crustaceans, mussels, shrimp , lobsters and many more.

The tide event also bolstered the economy of the region as the inflow of tourists was high.

“Besides the ‘tide of the century’ on March 21, there will be four other days when the tide will also be exceptional: April 19, August 31, September 29 and October 28,” an Odalys Vacance spokesperson said.

Mont Saint-Michel region is visited by over three million people every year.

 

Scientist urge ban on gene editing

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gene editingScientist has asked to ban the gene editing techniques. Gene editing is a technique where the humans DNA can be altered across generations.

Gene editing is not a new technique but it has been known since decades. The process of editing a gene back then was very slow, hard, expensive and only highly skilled experts were able to do it, but with the advancement in technology it has become very easy, cheaper and the process has sped up.

Scientists are very excited with the new techniques which will help to find new ways to cure the disease and also to understand biological laws and discover some new principles.

But always there are two faces of the coin, one being the good and the other being destructive, so scientist are very much worried that this new technology must not pass on to evil hands.

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is one such gene editing technique. But with this technique germline genetic modification can be performed which is very harmful.

So any mistake may cause several generations because the same sequence of genes will be passed down to generations. There are equal possibilities to invent new diseases which will again hurt the generations to come.

So there is a big debate over this, where some scientist are telling that this may open door to many inventions while others are doubtful about the consequences if anything goes wrong.

Vernal Equinox marks the start of spring

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vernal equinoxThe first day of the spring in northern hemispheres called as Vernal Equinox falls on Friday. This year is marked by three natural phenomenons falling on the same day namely the solar eclipse, vernal equinox and a Supermoon.

Supermoon implies that the moon is at the closest distance to the earth. A supermoon can appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.

The word equinox means “equal night” in latin.

Equinox is when the Earth’s 23.5-degree axis is not tilting toward or away from the sun such that the length of the day and the length of night are approximately equal. This occurs twice in a year on 20 March and on 22 September.

It all started last week when huge solar flare erupted from the sun, resulting in an amazing light show called as northern lights.

The vernal equinox is celebrated all over the world. In Poland people gather and burn an effigy and then they throw it in the river this is a gesture to winter. In Belarus, women geared with traditional costumes sing songs and enjoy.

In 2053 and 2072 solar eclipse will coincide with the vernal equinox.

 

ESA’s Rosetta detects molecular nitrogen on Comet 67P

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rosetta

European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta probe mission has detected peculiar mix of molecular nitrogen on the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, offering crucial clues to the conditions that led to the birth of the solar system.

The study was led by Martin Rubin, a scientist at the space research and planetary sciences division of Switzerland’s University of Bern.

According to the scientists, molecular nitrogen has played a very crucial role in the formation of the young solar system.

The scientists at the European Space Agency said that the detection of molecular nitrogen suggests that Comet 67P was formed under low-temperature conditions, which is required to keep nitrogen in the form of ice).

The astronomers explain as nitrogen is also available on planets and moons in the outer solar system, the latest discovery made by Rosetta clearly implies that the family of comets of 67P has also formed in the same region.

“Its detection is particularly important since molecular nitrogen is thought to have been the most common type of nitrogen available when the solar system was forming. In the colder outer regions, it likely provided the main source of nitrogen that was incorporated into the gas planets. It also dominates the dense atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan and is present in the atmospheres and surface ices on Pluto and on Neptune’s moon Triton,” the ESA officials wrote in an issued statement.

The Rosetta spacecraft used the ROSINA instrument (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) last year between October 17 and October 23 for detecting the presence of molecular nitrogen on the comet. At that time, the Rosetta spacecraft was orbiting only 6.2 miles (or 10 kilometers) from the center of Comet 67P.

The more surprising thing for the scientists was the ratio of molecular nitrogen to carbon monoxide present in the comet. According to them, the ratio was 25 times less than the expectations derived from the models of the early solar system.

Scientists explain the unexpectedly low ratio is caused from the manner in which the formation of ice took place at extremely low temperatures.

The findings were detailed in the journal Science.

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