Tag: Real Science

Geeking Science: Solar Sailing Technology Continues to Mature

Erin Penn

After over three years, the one-year mission of the LightSail is complete. November 17 ends the experiment to prove Solar Sailing is a viable technology for space exploration. It’s not sexy-fast, but the ability to explore is now within the pocket book of communities and not just governments trying to one-up each other.

I and 50,000 people like me made this happen. We crowdfunded both the original LightSail (which didn’t make it to space) and the second LightSail.

Even better, another Solar Sail project launched into space before our lovely lightsail deorbited. The Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout is now piggybacking the Artemis I launch for a moon deployment. Now that the concept of Solar Sailing is a PROVEN technology, NASA is using it to test affordability. Space exploration has been limited by the pocketbook; Solar Sailing is providing a blue-light special.

NEA Scout will demonstrate the ability to hitch a ride to one destination and then use a solar sail to fly somewhere else. The small spacecraft will initially ride to the Moon before using a solar sail to leave for a near-Earth asteroid. (NEA Scout, 2022)

 

Sadly, the NEA Scout did not respond to initial communications. (Bartels, 2022) Blue-light specials mean a cut-back on the redundancy, and a higher chance of failure. It’s a tradeoff – the “do-it-cheaper” concept is cut the price by to a twentieth, knowing the failures will triple – with the hope of still a savings at nearly by having seven times the missions being successful.

In the case of Artemis I, seven of the ten CubeStats deployed without issue. The NEA Scout is one of three with a problem status. (Messier, 2022)
Seven out of ten isn’t bad. I wish the solar sail made the random statistical cut. Another time.

This is now, This is our future. We can reach the stars.

Bibliography

Betts, Bruce. “LightSail 2 is about to burn up”. The Planetary Society. November 14, 2022. https://www.planetary.org/articles/lightsail-2-is-about-to-burn-up – Last viewed 12/5/2022.

Bartels, Meghan. “NASA’s Artemis 1 launched a solar sail cubesat to an asteroid. It may be in trouble.” Space.com. November 2022. https://www.space.com/artemis-1-cubesat-nea-scout-asteroid-silent – Last viewed 12/5/2022.

Davis, Jason. “LightSail 2 completes mission with atmospheric reentry.” The Planetary Society. November 17, 2022. https://www.planetary.org/articles/lightsail-2-completes-mission – Last viewed 12/5/2022.

Messier, Doug. “Status Report on Artemis I Secondary CubeStat Payloads.” Parabolic Arc. November 17, 2022. – Last viewed 12/5/2022 (link no longer works 4/26/2024).

“NEA Scout”. NASA. – Last viewed – 12/5/2022. (link no longer works 10/16/2023)

“NEA Scout, NASA’s solar sail mission to an asteroid”. The Planetary Society. https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/nea-scout – Last viewed 12/5/2022.

The Planetary Society. “#ThankYouLightSail”. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfSRAmUll_Y&t=73s – Last viewed 12/5/2022. (see above video)

Geeking Science: Gardening the Black

Erin Penn

Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin on Unsplash

Going into the dark, the vastness of space, is a challenge. Earth is our womb, our soil and roots, our air, our home, our food, the water of our blood. When we leave home, we will need to take our basic needs with us – air, water, the ability to grow food, the tools to make shelter – or figure out a way to do so out there in the dark.

Scientists are working on that as we speak. And one of the biggest helpers we might take with us is the all-time best grow-in-the-shadows food: mushrooms. To build soil and build houses.

Our food system depends on our top soil, and we will need a lot of it in space. One of the major producers of soil is fungus. Scientists are thinking they can jump start soil production with some carefully chosen and trained mushrooms.

And also build houses. I know, right? Fungus houses!

This fascinating subject is laid out in “Fungi Could Make Soil from Asteroids and Homes on Mars” by Madeleine Gregory. (April 8, 2022, on discovermagazine.com – https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/fungi-could-make-soil-from-asteroids-and-homes-on-mars – last viewed 10/14/2022)

Another part of the investigation is actually attempting to grow plants in lunar soil brought back by the Apollo missions. The too long-didn’t watch the whole 5 minutes of the video breakdown is (1) they did add nutrient rich water to grow the plants in the soil (what the other scientists mentioned above are trying to by-pass with the fungi because carting nutrients and water into space is EXPENSIVE) and (2) the plants still didn’t grow as well on the space soil as they did in similar soil found on Earth – and the scientists are excited about this because it means there is a difference between their simulation and the actual soil, now they just need to figure out what that is. As I mentioned before in Geeking Science posts, scientists love it when they have more questions than answers. (University of Florida scientists grow plants in soil from the moon – May 13, 2022 – youtube)

Geeking Science: Tree Talk

Erin Penn

Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

Scientists have discover trees gossip, after a fashion.

Through a fungal network, they share information about insect attacks, can request nutrients, and even nurture their young. So much happening right under our feet!

Within a multi-layer, diverse-culture forest, mother trees can make sure her seedlings get the food they need even under the shade of her branches. But here is a twist on that sharing nutrient network, trees do it with other trees outside their family line and even species. Initially, this might seem counter intutive to the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” concept of every creature and lifeform is out for themselves. When ecology professor Suzanne Simard ran a test, she discovered Birch and Fir trees talk to each other.

When the fir was shaded by the birch in summer, the birch sent more carbon to it. When the birch was leafless in the winter, the fir sent more carbon to it. (Burrows, 2018)

By working together, the two trees had a steady supply of “food” year round.

Cooperation for the win.

This interaction within the forest gives some concerns to clear-cutting and replacing with mono-culture tree species. Even removing the “largest” trees might not be the best option for a healthy forest, as the mother trees are teaching other trees how to share resources. This massive interaction is something loggers need to study to maximize production of good wood products.

<Simard> says, “<Trees> live longest and reproduce most often in a healthy stable forest. That’s why they’ve evolved to help their neighbors.” (Grant, 2018)

As a writer interested in science fiction, all this geeks me out. The interconnectedness of forests brings so much to the conceptual plate of Terraforming. Making oxygen and water won’t bring a planet paradise into existence. We must understand soil, trees sharing water and nutrients, fungi taking 30% of the sugar to provide a communication network and replaying the sugar with nutrients they gather to the tree roots. All these interactions will need to be brought into play on New-Earth, both fictional and in real life.

Bibliography

BBC News. “How trees secretly talk to each other” YouTube. June 29, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWOqeyPIVRo – last viewed 12/18/2022.

Burrows, Sue. “Trees Talk to Each Other in a Language We Can Learn, Ecologist Claims”. ReturnToNow.net. February 28, 2018. https://returntonow.net/2018/02/28/trees-talk/ – last viewed 12/18/2022 (Note 4/26/2024: website cancelled).

Grant, Richard. “Do Trees Talk to Each Other?”. Smithsonian Magazine. March 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/ – Last viewed 12/18/2022.

McClenaghan, Beverly. “STEM in Context – Talking Trees: How Do Trees Communicate?” Let’s Talk Science. July 23, 2019. – last viewed 12/18/2022 (Note from 9/20/2023 – looks like it is now behind a paywall).

 

Geeking Science: Walking on Eggshells

Erin Penn

Image acquired from: 254588 © Kmitu | Dreamstime.com

Exoplanets continue to be discovered and the scientists gather what little information is available from our distant observation point: closeness to its star, size, …. oh, maybe atmosphere if the light bounces right. We can infer temperature, composition, and minerals available.  Year length and day cycle need just a bit of number crunching.

Then scientist group the planet into something that matches our system of planets – the rocky inner, the gas giants, ice rocks, and maybe, terrestrial in the life zone. But in the infinite possibilities of the universe, will every planet be a “Jupiter” or “Venus”?

Using computer modeling, other possibilities are coming to light. One is eggshell planets. The thin lithosphere means no plate tectonics, which I was surprised to learn meant uninhabitable because one of the job of plate tectonics is to control the minerals related to controlling carbon.

You know the stuff humanity is trying to control to rein in climate change.

The eggshell planets, according to theory, will have runaway greenhouse heating because of the lack of recycling crust. Other peculiarities include a crust that might bow and dip with heat cycles of the lower levels, but not create mountains or valleys.

As a science fiction writer, I thinking about how would industries take advantage of these planets? Could ships hide in the unique crust features? Scientists suspect life as we know it can’t live there, but what other options might play out?

The fact is there are over a dozen suspected planetary types. As writers, we don’t need to limit ourselves to the standard four.

Bibliography
Choi, Charles Q. “Strange ‘eggshell’ exoplanets may have ultra-smooth surface.” 2021 November 29. Space.com. https://www.space.com/eggshell-exoplanets-ultra-smooth-surfaces?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=space.com&fbclid=IwAR16dotQSs-WVpo4DkyXOjhdxprXNrungCtjFYlGDMAvxAIpX8ZLxK-sa2I – Last viewed 1/12/2022.

Gough, Evan. “Eggshell Planets Have a Thin Brittle Crust and No Mountains or Tectonics.” 2021 November 18. Universe Today. https://www.universetoday.com/153328/eggshell-planets-have-a-thin-brittle-crust-and-no-mountains-or-tectonics/ – Last viewed 1/12/2022.

Unveiled. “Why Scientists Are Studying Unique Eggshell Planets.” 2022 January 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FiA57KKDqo – Last viewed 1/12/2022.

Geeking Science: Plant Trees

Erin Penn

Photo by Eyoel Kahssay on Unsplash

Planting trees is essential for reversing climate change.

I mentioned my “duh” moment of the important of trees back in 2018 (Geeking Science: Trees and Oxygen). Because trees are MUCH taller than everything humanity replaces them with, the VOLUME of tree oxygen production is much higher than crops or grass.

Trees also STORE a lot of carbon, much more than grass. A study shows that trees planted in a manner that doesn’t impact human cities or agriculture can still store two-thirds of the carbon humanity needs to pull out of the atmosphere to mitigate the worse aspects of climate change. (Good News Network, 2019)

You may wonder if planting trees will really make a difference. Seems possible based on what happened in the 1500s when within a single century the indigenous population of the Americas was reduced by 90% from 60 million to 6 million. All that farmland used by the Inca, Sioux, Cree, etc. became reclaimed by the forest. Antarctic ice core studies show a reduction in carbon by 7 to 10 part per million because of that. While the Little Ice Age started before the 1500s, its onset spurred by volcanic eruptions, the temperatures reached their all-time lows during century where nearly all farmland in America disappeared. (Geggel, 2019)

Now this particular study of agriculture losses in the Americas impacting carbon levels is still in the “lots of questions” stage of scientific investigation. Until at least two or three other studies are needed to support or refute the postulate; a grain of salt needs to be taken with these “facts.” They are not facts per se, just theories, and not widely accepted ones as yet. But they have enough heft, they do warrant further study.

Trees also have other benefits, especially when added to an urban area. They reduce pollutants. Make life prettier and reduce noise. Decreases stress and family violence. Connect eco-spheres isolated within the urban setting. Control storm water, holding water in their leaves and roots to reduce flooding issues. And, most importantly (and easiest to prove), reduce urban heat island effects – reducing heat-related illness and death, air conditioning costs, and road maintenance.  All this on top of controlling carbon levels which MAY help mitigate climate change. (Grants Pass Oregon)

I’m willing to take climate change as a BONUS, and make Urban Forests into reality just for all the other benefits.

Acquired from the internet hive brain (Copyright © 2014 CartoonArts International)

Bibliography

Geggel, Laura. “European Slaughters of Indigenous Americans May Have Cooled the Planet. LiveScience. 2019 February 8. https://www.livescience.com/64723-great-dying-little-ice-age.html (last viewed 4/10/2022)

Good News Network. “For First Time Ever, Scientists Identify How Many Trees to Plant and Where to Plant Them to Stop Climate Crisis.” 2019 July 7. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-many-trees-to-plant-to-stop-climate-crisis/ (last viewed 4/10/2022)

Grants Pass Oregon. “Appendix A: Benefits of Trees in Urban Areas.” https://www.grantspassoregon.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1626/Chapter-3-Appendix-A-PDF (last viewed 4/10/2022)