Think Big, Be Your Best, And Reach Out Farther Than You Can Imagine. #furtherthanbefore #pathwaytothestars

In the works, #veshaceleste #authored by #sciencefictionfantasy #writer #matthewopdyke and #narrator #allisontaylor #strongfemalelead #neuroscience #physics #theoreticalphysics #biotechnology #physiology #nanotechnology #longevity #CRISPR #heforshe #politicalsciencefiction #furtherthanbefore #pathwaytothestars #audiobook https://www.instagram.com/p/BtQOmHlgle4/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jaexo15cdd91

Wow, quite a career!

Ever want to ask a real life astronaut a question? Here’s your chance!

Astronaut Jeanette Epps will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Friday, May 5 from 10am - 11am ET here on NASA’s Tumblr. See the questions she’s answered by visiting nasa.tumblr.com/tagged/answertime!

NASA astronaut Jeanette J. Epps (Ph.D.) was selected as an astronaut in 2009. She has been assigned to her first spaceflight, which is scheduled to launch in May 2018. Her training included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station systems, spacewalk training, robotics, T‐38 flight training and wilderness survival training.

Before becoming an astronaut, Epps worked as a Technical Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Born in Syracuse, New York. Enjoys traveling, reading, running, mentoring, scuba diving and family.

She has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from LeMoyne College, as well as a Master of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland. 

Follow Jeanette on Twitter at @Astro_Jeanette and follow NASA on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.

Hubble’s Greatest Discoveries Weren’t Planned; They Were Surprises

“And if we head out beyond our own galaxy, that’s where Hubble truly shines, having taught us more about the Universe than we ever imagined was out there. One of the greatest, most ambitious projects ever undertaken came in the mid-1990s, when astronomers in charge of Hubble redefined staring into the unknown. It was possibly the bravest thing ever done with the Hubble Space Telescope: to find a patch of sky with absolutely nothing in it — no bright stars, no nebulae, and no known galaxies — and observe it. Not just for a few minutes, or an hour, or even for a day. But orbit-after-orbit, for a huge amount of time, staring off into the nothingness of empty space, recording image after image of pure darkness.

What came back was amazing. Beyond what we could see, there were thousands upon thousand of galaxies out there in the abyss of space, in a tiny region of sky.”

28 years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed. Since that time, it’s changed our view of the Solar System, the stars, nebulae, galaxies, and the entire Universe. But here’s the kicker: almost all of what it discovered wasn’t what it was designed to look for. We were able to learn so much from Hubble because it broke through the next frontier, looking at the Universe in a way we’ve never looked at it before. Astronomers and astrophysicists found clever ways to exploit its capabilities, and the observatory itself was overbuilt to the point where, 28 years later, it’s still one of the most sought-after telescopes as far as observing time goes.

Hubble’s greatest discoveries weren’t planned, but the planning we did enabled them to become real. Here are some great reasons to celebrate its anniversary.

What’s The Largest Planet In The Universe?

“Above a certain mass, the atoms inside large planets will begin to compress so severely that adding more mass will actually shrink your planet. This happens in our Solar System, explaining why Jupiter is three times Saturn’s mass, but only 20% physically larger. But many solar systems have planets made out of much lighter elements, without large, rocky cores inside.”

You might think that Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System because it’s the most massive, but that’s not quite right. If you kept adding mass to Saturn, it would get larger in size, but if you kept adding mass to Jupiter, it would shrink! For a given set of elements that your planet is made out of, there’s a maximum size it can reach, that’s somewhere in between the mass of Saturn and Jupiter in general. Our Solar System is on the dense side of things, meaning that we’ve discovered a large number of exoplanets out there that are approximately twice the physical size of Jupiter without becoming brown dwarfs or hydrogen-fusing stars. For worlds like WASP-17b, where we’ve measured both the radius and mass, we find that they’re only about half the mass of Jupiter, despite being double the size.

Come get the full scientific story, and some very informative and illustrative images with no more than 200 words, on today’s Mostly Mute Monday!

Ask Ethan: When Were Dark Matter And Dark Energy Created?

“Today [normal matter] is only 4.9% while Dark Matter and Dark Energy takes the rest. Where did they come from?”

The Universe, as we know it, got its start in earnest when the hot Big Bang began. Space was filled with all the particles and antiparticles of the Standard Model, up at tremendous energies, while the Universe then expanded, cooled, and gave rise to all we know. But when did dark matter and dark energy, which make up 95% of the Universe we know today, come into the picture? Was the Universe born with these components of energy? Or were they created at a later time? We have some inklings that dark matter was likely created in the extremely early stages, but may not have been present from the Universe’s birth. On the other hand, all theoretical signs point to dark energy always existing, but observationally, we have about 4 billion years where we cannot measure its presence at all.

Where do dark matter and dark energy come from? It’s a great cosmic mystery, but we do know something about it. Find out where we are today!

A Much-Needed Skills, Contributions, and Direction

There are many times I ask myself, why didn’t I start a trade skill from the get-go? We can never underestimate how much it is that the people who are dedicated in these professions are a large part of that which brings a higher quality of life to all of us in one form or another. No matter what we do, if kindness and well-being are parts of our central or internal value system, humanity might…

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💜 - Matthew Opdyke

As I write and as I share, my main three priorities in a more converged manner are 1. Biology, 2. Neurology, and 3. Physics, as I have described in this meme.

30 years after the detection of SN1987A neutrinos

On February 23, 1987, just before 30 years from today, the neutrinos emitted from the supernova explosion SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud, approximately 160,000 light-years away, reached the earth. Kamiokande, the predecessor detector of Super-Kamiokande, detected the 11 emitted neutrinos. Worldwide, it was the first instance of the detection of the emitted neutrinos from the supernova burst, and it served a big step toward resolving the supernova explosion system. In 2002, Dr. Masatoshi Koshiba, a Special University Professor Emeriuts of the University of Tokyo, was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement.

Before the explosion of supernova SN1987A (right) and after the explosion (left) Anglo-Australian Observatory/David Malin

Kamiokande, the pioneer of neutrino research

Kamiokande detector was a cylindrical water tank (16 m in diameter and height) with 1000 of the world’s largest photomultiplier tubes inside it, and it was laid 1000 m underground in Kamioka-town, Yoshiki-gun, (currently Hida-city) Gifu Prefecture, Japan. (Currently the site of Kamiokande is used for KamLAND experiment.) Kamiokande was devised by Prof. Koshiba who started the observation in 1983. Originally, it was constructed for detecting the proton decay phenomenon, but it was modified for the solar neutirno observation. By the end of 1986, the detector modification was completed and the observation began.

Inside of Kamiokande detector

Overview of Kamiokande detector

Prof. Koshiba working in the tank

Prof. Kajita and Prof. Nakahata (then PhD students) tuning up the data aquision system in the mine

The day of detection of the supernova neutrinos

On February 25, 1987, two days after the observation of supernova SN1987A through naked eyes, a fax was sent from Pennsylvania University to the University of Tokyo to inform them about the supernova explosion. Soon after receiving the fax, Prof. Yoji Totsuka asked the researcher in Kamioka to send the magnetic tapes that recorded the Kamiokande data. (At that time, the information network was not developed, so the data was delivered physically).

The fax sent from Pennsylvania University to inform about the supernova explosion.

On February 27, when the magnetic tapes arrived at the laboratory in Tokyo, Prof. Masayuki Nakahata (currently the spokesperson of Super-Kamiokande experiment), who was then a PhD student immediately started the analysis. On the morning of February 28, while Prof. Nakahata printed out the analysis plot between the detection time and number of photo-sensors that detect the light, Ms. Keiko Hirata, a Master’s student found a peak, obviously different from the noise in the distribution. It was the exact trace to detect the neutrinos from SN1987A. (A two minutes blank period due to a regular system maintenance is recorded in the plot, at a few minutes before the explosion. If the explosion occurred during this period, Kamiokande could not have detected the SN1987A neutrinos.) After a detailed analysis, it was clear that Kamiokande detected 11 neutrinos for 13 seconds after 16:35:35 on February 23, 1987.

THe magnetic tape recorded SN1987A data

The printout of Kamiokande data and the envelope which stores the printout in. “Keep carefully Y.T.” written by Prof. Youji Totsuka.

The printout of the data. Horizontal axis shows time (from right to left and one line as 10 seconds) and the vertical axis shows the number of hit photo-sensors of each event (approximately proportional to the energy of the event). The obvious peak is the signal of neutrinos from SN1987A. The blank period due to the detector maintainance was recorded a few minutes before the signal.

When Prof. Nakahata finished the analysis and reported to Prof. Koshiba on the morning of March 2, Prof. Koshiba instructed him to investigate the entire data for the presence of similar signals. Under a gag rule, researchers analyzed the 43 days data of Kamiokande on March 2 to March 6, and obtained conclusive evidence that the occurrence of the peak was only from the signal of the supernova SN1987A; further, they published these findings as an article. Here are the the signatures of researchers who wrote the article.

The subsequent development of neutrino research

The Kamiokande’s detection of the supernova neutrinos became a trigger to recognize the importance of neutrino research, and the construction of Super-Kamiokande, whose volume is about 20 times larger than that of Kamiokande, was approved. Super-Kamiokande started observation from 1996 and discovered the neutrino oscillation in 1998. In 2015, Prof. Takaaki Kajita was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement. SN1987A made a worldwide breakthrough in neutrino research, including the K2K experiment, T2K experiment and KamLAND experiment.

If a supernova explosion in our galaxy occurs now, Super-Kamiokande will detect approximately 8,000 neutrinos, almost 1000 times greater than those detected 30 years ago. Further, it is expected that the detailed mechanism of supernova explosion will be revealed and we will understand the stars or our universe in depth. In our galaxy, the supernova explosion is expected to occur once in every 30-50 years. It may occur at this very moment. The neutrinos from the supernova will be detected in mere 10 seconds. Super-Kamiokande continues the observation and will not miss any explosion moment.

Source

Nine facts about neutrinos

Images: Kamioka Observatory,

Thank you for your endless curiosity Dr. Hawking.