Saturn: Up, Close and Personal!

All you astronomy freaks, take out you telescope and be prepared. Saturn is gonna be closest to Earth tomorrow. ICTMN reported that this is the closest Saturn has been to Earth in six years (putting it at about 746 million miles away, as opposed to one billion at its farthest), and a small telescope—even a cheapo department-store find, according to NASA—will net you your very own glimpse.

Saturn's bright rings!

Saturn is in what’s known as opposition. This means that the sun, Earth and Saturn are aligned, with Earth in the middle—opposite the sun, in other words—and tilted at just the right angle for us to ogle its breathtaking rings. So this weekend, when the sun sets in the west, Saturn will rise in the east, and when the sun is farthest below the horizon, Saturn will reach its highest point above the horizon.

"The first impulse people have when they see Saturn for the first time is to say it is fake," said MacRobert, who writes the weekly column "This Week's Sky at a Glance." "It is almost too much of an icon. We've seen the image of that planet with the rings since we were kids, and to see the real thing -- some people can't believe it's real."

Read more: Saturn: Rain over Me!

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Sleeping in Space

These days internet is filled with videos about space - how to eat there, brush there, shit there. Latest is the one about how to sleep there! 

Phew! People are so bored in space, having nothing to do, that they actually make tutorials about everything they do there. Now, what will I do learning about how to brush in space or how to sleep there! It's not like in case of emergency, when NASA runs out of people, it is gonna contact me to go and complete their mission. Or is it?

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Saturn: Rain Over Me!

A new study by scientists at University of Leicester, England, reveals that the Saturn's rings cause rain of charged water particles into its atmosphere. The study, whose observations were funded by NASA reveals that the rain falls over a large portion which influences the composition and temperature structure of parts of Saturn's upper atmosphere. The paper appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/University of Leicester

“Saturn is the first planet to show significant interaction between its atmosphere and ring system," said James O’Donoghue, the paper's lead author and a postgraduate researcher at Leicester. “The main effect of ring rain is that it acts to 'quench' the ionosphere of Saturn. In other words, this rain severely reduces the electron densities in regions in which it falls."

O’Donoghue explains that the ring's effect on electron densities is important because it explains why, for many decades, observations have shown those densities to be unusually low at certain latitudes on Saturn. The study also helps scientists better understand the origin and evolution of Saturn's ring system and changes in the planet's atmosphere.

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The Beginning of The Universe- For Beginners!

Here's a trending video from YouTube about the beginning of the universe for beginners!

Enjoy and learn! :D

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World's Lightest Material: Carbon Aerogel

Scientists at Zhejiang University have produced a substance that is the World's lightest substance till date. It has the density equal to only one-sixth of the density of air.

Professor Gao Chao is the head of the team which built Carbon Aerogel, the solid material which has a density of only 0.16 mg/cubic centimetre. The earlier record of being the lightest material was held by Graphite Aerogel developed by a team of researchers at the University of Kiel and the Technical University of Hamburg in Germany in June 2012. 

Cabon Aerogel on the petals of a delicate flower but doesn't crush it .

The research team led by Professor Gao Chao freeze-dried solutions of carbon nanotubes and graphene to remove moisture and retain integrity. "Carbon aerogel is similar to carbon sponge in structure. When an aerogel of the size of a mug is put on Setaria, the slender grass will not bend," Gao Chao said in a statement. The study by Gao Chao was reported in the journal Advanced Materials.

The Indian Express reported it as excellent in elasticity as it can easily bounce back when compressed. In addition, it's one of the materials with biggest oil absorption capacity. Current oil absorbing products can usually absorb organic solvent of about 10 times of their own weight. The carbon aerogel newly developed can absorb up to 900 times their own weight.

"Carbon aerogel is expected to play an important role in pollution control such as oil spill control, water purification and even air purification," Gao Chao said.

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Sunita Williams revives hopes of Indo-US joint space mission!

Sunita Williams visited India yesterday at the invitation of National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata. She interacted with the students and tried to familiarize them with the opportunities in the space research and missions. She said, "Obviously, there is capability in India to do lot more in space research. So far, (the country) is launching satellites and launching people. The kids here are interested in space because I have always got questions (like) how can we be part of international space station, how can we be astronauts (etc). The government should accelerate the space programmes.” 

Sunita Williams interacts with students at National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata

About Indo-US space missions, Williams said, "I think there was a question about potentially going down to ISRO and I didn’t have permission to go and visit people down there. But, now I know that people from ISRO and NASA are talking together. So, I see that that potential is growing and progressing."

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Arctic to get Greener!

In a paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists have revealed that the Arctic is about to get greener in the coming decades. The scientists have revealed new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent till 2050 due to global warming. It is quite ironical but this increase in green cover will lead to further increase in global warming.

The study has been conducted by Richard Pearson, lead author on the paper and a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. The research team—which includes scientists from the Museum, AT&T Labs-Research, Woods Hole Research Center, Colgate University, Cornell University, and the University of York—used climate scenarios for the 2050s to predict how this trend is likely to continue in the future. 

The modelled change in the tree cover for 2050
Source: Richard Pearson's paper in Nature Climate Change

Pearson said, "These impacts would extend far beyond the Arctic region. For example, some species of birds seasonally migrate from lower latitudes and rely on finding particular polar habitats, such as open space for ground-nesting."

The greener belt would lead to increase in global warming which is contrasting to the popular belief that tree cover leads to reduction in global warming effects. This is because of the albedo effect, which means that a part of the total solar radiation received by Earth is reflected back to the outer space by the snow cover of the Arctic and the clouds. Now with the increasing greenery of the Arctic, the snow will melt, thus leading to higher radiation reaching the Earth's surface and warming it up. This will lead to further increase in the Earth's temperature which will in turn lead to melting of more ice cover. 

If it occurs in the postulated way, it will prove to be very harmful for the humankind.

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