Q&A with Brian Cox, part 3: ‘Wonders’ and Popularizing Science

Brian Cox, during the filming of one of his television series. Image courtesy Brian Cox.

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Professor Brian Cox is the Chair in Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. But he’s also active in the popularization of science, specifically with his new television series and companion book, Wonders of the Universe. Universe Today had the chance to talk with Cox, and on Tuesday he told us about the recent advances in particle physics, and on Wednesday we asked him about his favorite space missions and his hopes for the future of science. Today, Cox tells us about his role in sharing science with the public, and talks about his new book and filming the television series.

For a chance to win a copy of the “Wonders of the Universe” book, see our contest post.

Universe Today: You’ve been really busy, with writing books, filming two television series and DVDs. Do you have time to do research in particle physics as well?

Brian Cox: Well, I must say I’ve been a bit restricted over the past couple of years in how much research I’ve done. I’m still attached to the experiment at CERN, but it’s just one of those things! In many ways it’s a regret because I would love to be there full time at the moment because it is so genuinely exciting. We’re making serious progress and we’re going to discover something like the Higgs particle, I would guess, within the next 12 months.

But then again, you can’t do everything and it’s a common regret amongst academics, actually, that that as they get older, they get taken away from the cutting-edge of research if they’re not careful! But I suppose it is not a bad way to be taken away from the cutting edge, to make TV programs and push this agenda that I have to make science more relevant and popular.

UT : Absolutely! Outreach and educating the public is very important, especially in the area of research you are in. I would guess a majority of the general public are not exceptionally well-versed in particle physics.

Cox: Well, Carl Sagan is a great hero of mine and he used to say it is really about teaching people the scientific method – or actually providing the understanding and appreciation of what science is. We look at these questions, such as what happened just after the Universe began, or why the particles in the Universe have mass – they are very esoteric questions.

But the fact that we’ve been able build some reasonable theories about the how old universe is — and we have a number 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years old, quite a precise number — so the question of showing how you get to those quite remarkable conclusions is very important. When you look at what we might call more socially-important subjects – for example how to respond to global warming, or what should be our policy for vaccinating the population against disease, or how should we produce energy in the future, and if you understand what the scientific method is and that it is apolitical and a-religious and it is a-everything and there is no agenda there, and is just pure way of looking of universe, that’s the important thing for society to understand.

UT : Please tell us about your new book, “Wonders of the Universe.”

“Wonders of the Universe” is a book about the television series. Traditionally these books are quite ‘coffee table,’ image-heavy books. The filming of the series took longer than we anticipated, so actually the book got written relatively quickly because I had time to sit down and really just write about the physics. Although it is tied with the television series, it does go quite a lot deeper in many areas. I’m quite pleased about that. So it’s more than just snapshots of my view of the physics of the TV series.

I should say also, some parts of it are in the form of a diary of what it was like filming the TV series. There are always some things you do and places you go that have quite an impact on you. And I tend to take a lot of pictures so many of the photographs in the book are mine. So, it is written on two levels: It is a much deeper view of the physics of the television series, but secondly it is a diary of the experience of filming the series and going to those places.

(Editor’s note, Cox is also just finishing a book on quantum mechanics, so look for that in the near future)

Brian Cox, while filming a BBC series in the Sahara. Image courtesy Brian Cox

UT : What were some of your best experiences while filming ‘Wonders?’

Cox: One thing that, well, I wouldn’t say enjoyed filming, because it was quite nerve-wracking – but something that really worked was the prison demolition sequence in Rio. We used it as an analog for a collapsing star, a star at the end of its life that has run out of fuel and it collapses under its own gravity. It does that in a matter of seconds, on the same timescale as a building collapses when you detonate it.

Wandering around a building that is full of live dynamite and explosives is not very relaxing! It was all wired up and ready to go. But when we blew it up, and I thought it really worked well, and I enjoyed it a lot, actually as a television piece.

The ambition of the series is to try and get away from using too many graphics, if possible. You obviously have to use some graphics because we are talking about quite esoteric concepts, but we tried to put these things ‘on Earth’, by using real physical things to talk about the processes. What we did, we went inwards into the prison and at each layer we said, here’s where the hydrogen fuses to helium, and here’s the shell where helium goes to carbon and oxygen, and another shell all the way down to iron at the center of the stars. That’s the way stars are built, so we used this layered prison to illustrate that and then collapse it. That’s a good example of what the ambition of the series was.

UT : You’ve been called a rock star in the physics and astronomy field but in actuality you did play in a rock band before returning to science. What prompted that shift in your career?

Cox: I always wanted to be a physicist or astronomer from as far back as I can remember, that was always my thing when I was growing up. I got distracted when I was in my teens, or interested I should say, in music and being in a band. The opportunity came to join a band that was formed by an ex-member of Thin Lizard, a big rock band in the UK, and the States as well, so I did that. We made two albums; we toured with lots of people. That band split up and I went to university and then joined another band as a side line, and that band got successful as well. That was two accidents, really! It was a temporary detour rather than a switch, because I always wanted to do physics.

UT : Thanks for taking the time to talk with us on Universe Today – we appreciate all the work you do in making science more accessible so everyone can better appreciate and understand how it impacts our lives.

Cox: Thank you, I appreciate it!

Find out more about Brian Cox at his website, Apollo’s Children

Q&A with Brian Cox, part 2: Space Exploration and Hopes for the Future

Brian Cox. Photo by Vincent Connare

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Professor Brian Cox is the Chair in Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. But he’s also active in the popularization of science, specifically with his new television series and companion book, Wonders of the Universe. Universe Today had the chance to talk with Cox, and yesterday he told us about the recent advances in particle physics. Today we ask him about his favorite space missions and his hopes for the future of science.

For a chance to win a copy of the “Wonders of the Universe” book, see our contest post.

Universe Today: The Juno mission just launched to Jupiter and there are lots of other space missions going on. What are some your favorites and your hopes of what those kinds of missions will discover?

Brian Cox: The enormous question for space exploration is origin of life on other worlds. That is currently THE big question. We’ve seen discoveries recently about possible, plausible evidence of flowing water on Mars. There’s been evidence for awhile that there is perhaps subsurface water, but seeing what looks to be the signature of flowing, briny water — today — is very suggestive. On Earth, where we have water we have life, so this new finding makes Mars even more fascinating. The ExoMars project, the joint European-American mission to Mars to look for life is going to be one of most exciting missions yet, because there’s a good chance of finding it.

The ExoMars/Trace Gas Orbiter mission is a joint mission being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA/JPL. This mission would be the first in a series of joint missions to Mars for ESA and NASA. Credit: NASA

Now we’re heading off to Jupiter, and Europa is actually a fascinating place for the same reason. There is a huge amount subsurface water on Europa, and there has been speculation that colored markings on the surface of Europa could be life. It looks as though there may be seasonal shifts, and that could be possible cyanobacteria in the ice. This is really speculative, but this is the kind of language people are using now, talking about finding life with real optimism.

Beyond the solar system, the search for exoplanets is going very, very well. Virtually every star we survey we find planets! Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but we’ve found hundreds and hundreds of planets. We’ve begun to see Earth-like planets and so the next step is to do spectroscopy to look at light passing through the atmospheres of those planets and look for signatures of elements like oxygen. Again, if you find oxygen-rich atmospheres — which we are on the verge of looking for now — if you find that, then you’ve got pretty good evidence there is life on those planets.

So, it could be we find life on a distant planet before we find life in the solar system, which would be tremendous. But really, I do think the big discoveries will be all about life, certainly in solar system exploration.

UT : What are your hopes for the future regarding physics, technology and space?

Particle Collider
Large Hadron Collider (CERN/LHC/GridPP)

COX: I’d like to see an increase in rational thinking, which is synonymous with
scientific thinking.

Scientifically, the Large Hadron Collider is going to make a huge difference. It really is going to revolutionize our fundamental understanding of the way the universe works. Then there are these huge questions in fundamental physics, the question of why gravity is so weak, why the universe began in such an ordered way.

Then, what is 96% of the Universe made of? We know our Universe is full of something called Dark Matter and we don’t know what it is. The Universe is accelerating in its expansion, which we call Dark Energy and we don’t know what that is either. There is something fundamental going on.

I’d like to think this period of time is like the period of 1890 onwards to the turn of the 20th century. There were some small problems with things like understanding the spectrum of light, what atoms were; little problems really. But when we finally understood, it revolutionized our understanding of the Universe. Shortly after the turn of the century we got quantum theory, relativity – a complete change in our understanding. I’d like to think that maybe it’s a bit like that at the moment. There are so many little — and big — chinks in the armor of our picture of the Universe at the fundamental level. I think within the next few years, there will be big shifts, and probably, they will be led by the data from the LHC.

Tomorrow: Wonders

Find out more about Brian Cox at his website, Apollo’s Children

Now Available: 30 Free Lectures by Noted Astronomers

We just received a note from Andrew Franknoi and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific that they are making available, free of charge, 30 audio and video podcasts from talks given by distinguished astronomers on the latest ideas and discoveries in the field. Speakers include:

* Frank Drake, who began the experimental search for intelligent life among the stars,
* Mike Brown, who discovered most of the dwarf planets beyond Pluto (and whose humorous talk is entitled “How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming”),
* Natalie Batalha, project scientists on the Kepler Mission to find Earths around other stars,
* Alex Filippenko (national professor of the year) on finding black holes.

Recent topics added to the offerings include: multiple universes, Saturn’s moon Titan (with an atmosphere, rivers, and lakes), our explosive Sun, and whether we should expect doomsday in 2012.

The talks are part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, jointly sponsored by NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the SETI Institute, and Foothill College.
They are available via the web and ITunes. For a complete list and to begin listening, go to:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/podcast/

Q&A with Brian Cox, part 1: Recent Hints of the Higgs

Brian Cox at CERN with Kevin Eldon and Simon Munnery. Photo by Gia Milinovich, courtesy Brian Cox

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At two separate conferences in July, particle physicists announced some provoking news about the Higgs boson, and while the Higgs has not yet been found, physicists are continuing to zero in on the elusive particle. Universe Today had the chance to talk with Professor Brian Cox about these latest findings, and he says that within six to twelve months, physicists should be able to make a definite statement about the existence of the Higgs particle. Cox is the Chair in Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. But he’s also active in the popularization of science, specifically with his new television series and companion book, Wonders of the Universe, a follow up to the 2010 Peabody Award-winning series, Wonders of the Solar System.

Universe Today readers will have a chance to win a copy of the book, so stay tuned for more information on that. But today, enjoy the first of a three-part interview with Cox:


Universe Today: Can you tell us about your work with ATLAS and its potential for finding things like extra dimensions, the unification of forces or dark matter?

Brian Cox, during the filming of one of his television series. Image courtesy Brian Cox.

Brian Cox: The big question is the origin and mass of the universe. It is very, very important because it is not an end in itself. It is a fundamental part of Quantum Field Theory, which is our theory of three of the four forces of nature. So if you ask the question on the most basic level of how does the universe work, there are only two pillars of our understanding at the moment. There is Einstein’s Theory of General Relatively, which deals with gravity — the weakest force in the Universe that deals with the shape of space and time and all those things. But everything else – electromagnetism, the way the atomic nuclei works, the way molecules work, chemistry, all that – everything else is what’s called a Quantum Field Theory. Embedded in that is called the Standard Model of particle physics. And embedded in that is this mechanism for generating mass, and it’s just so fundamental. It’s not just kind of an interesting add-on, it’s right in the heart of the way the theory works.

So, understanding whether our current picture of the Universe is right — and if there is this thing called the Higgs mechanism or whether there is something else going on — is critical to our progress because it is built into that picture. There are hints in the data recently that maybe that mechanism is right. We have to be careful. It’s not a very scientific thing to say that we have hints. We have these thresholds for scientific discovery, and we have them for a reason, because you get these statistical flukes that appear in the data and when you get more data they go away again.

The statement from CERN now is that if they turn out to be more than just fluctuations, really, within six months we should be able to make some definite statement about the existence of the Higgs particle.

I think it is very important to emphasize that this is not just a lot of particle physicists looking for particles because that’s their job. It is the fundamental part of our understanding of three of the four forces of nature.

Brian Cox at Fermilab. Photo by Paul Olding.

UT : So these very interesting results from CERN and the Tevatron at Fermilab giving us hints about the Higgs, could you can talk little bit more about that and your take on the latest findings?

COX: The latest results were published in a set of conferences a few weeks ago and they are just under what is called the Three Sigma level. That is the way of assessing how significant the results are. The thing about all quantum theory and particle physics in general, is it is all statistical. If you do this a thousand times, then three times this should happen, and eight times that should happen. So it’s all statistics. As you know if you toss a coin, it can come up heads ten times, there is a probability for that to happen. It doesn’t mean the coin is weighted or there’s something wrong with it. That’s just how statistics is.

So there are intriguing hints that they have found something interesting. Both experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, the ATLAS and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) recently reported “excess events” where there were more events than would be expected if the Higgs does not exist. It is about the right mass: we think the Higgs particle should be somewhere between about 120 and 150 gigaelectron volts [GeV—a unit of energy that is also a unit of mass, via E = mc2, where the speed of light, c, is set to a value of one] which is the expected mass range of the Higgs. These hints are around 140, so that’s good, it’s where it should be, and it is behaving in the way that it is predicted to by the theory. The theory also predicts how it should decay away, and what the probability should be, so all the data is that this is consistent with the so-called standard model Higgs.

But so far, these events are not consistently significant enough to make the call. It is important that the Tevatron has glimpsed it as well, but that has even a lower significance because that was low energy and not as many collisions there. So you’ve got to be scientific about things. There is a reason we have these barriers. These thresholds are to be cleared to claim discoveries. And we haven’t cleared it yet.

But it is fascinating. It’s the first time one of these rumors have been, you know, not just nonsense. It really is a genuine piece of exciting physics. But you have to be scientific about these things. It’s not that we know it is there and we’re just not going to announce it yet. It’s the statistics aren’t here yet to claim the discovery.

Brian Cox, while filming a BBC series in the Sahara. Image courtesy Brian Cox

UT : Well, my next question was going to be, what happens next? But maybe you can’t really answer that because all you can do is keep doing the research!

COX: The thing about the Higgs, it is so fundamentally embedded in quantum theory. You’ve got to explore it because it is one thing to see a hint of a new particle, but it’s another thing to understand how that particle behaves. There are lots of different ways the Higgs particles can behave and there are lots of different mechanisms.

There is a very popular theory called supersymmetry which also would explain dark matter, one of the great mysteries in astrophysics. There seems to be a lot of extra stuff in the Universe that is not behaving the way that particles of matter that we know of behave, and with five times more “stuff” as what makes up everything we can see in the Universe. We can’t see dark matter, but we see its gravitational influence. There are theories where we have a very strong candidate for that — a new kind of particle called a supersymmetry particles. There are five Higgs particles in them rather than one. So the next question is, if that is a Higgs-like particle that we’ve discovered, then what is it? How does it behave? How does it talk to the other particles?

And then there are a huge amount of questions. The Higgs theory as it is now doesn’t explain why the particles have the masses they do. It doesn’t explain why the top quark, which is the heaviest of the fundamental particles, is something like 180 times heavier than the proton. It’s a tiny point-like thing with no size but it’s 180 times the mass of a proton! That is heavier than some of the heaviest atomic nuclei!

Why? We don’t know.

I think it is correct to say there is a door that needs to be opened that has been closed in our understanding of the Universe for decades. It is so fundamental that we’ve got to open it before we can start answering these further questions, which are equally intriguing but we need this answered first.

UT: When we do get some of these questions answered, how is that going to change our outlook and the way that we do things, or perhaps the way YOU do things, anyway! Maybe not us regular folks…

COX: Well, I think it will – because this is part of THE fundamental theory of the forces of nature. So quantum theory in the past has given us an understanding, for example, of the way semiconductors work, and it underpins our understanding of modern technology, and the way chemistry works, the way that biological systems work – it’s all there. This is the theory that describes it all. I think having a radical shift and deepening in understanding of the basic laws of nature will change the way that physics proceeds in 21st century, without a doubt. It is that fundamental. So, who knows? At every paradigm shift in science, you never really could predict what it was going to do; but the history of science tells you that it did something quite remarkable.

There is a famous quote by Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, who said that when he woke up on a certain September morning of 1928, he certainly didn’t expect to revolutionize modern medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic. He said that in hindsight, but he just discovered some mold, basically, but there it was.

But it was fundamental and that is the thing to emphasize.

Some of our theories, you look at them and wonder how we worked them! The answer is mathematically, the same way that Einstein came up with General Relativity, with mathematical predictions. It is remarkable we’ve been able to predict something so fundamental about the way that empty space behaves. We might turn out to be right.

Tomorrow: Part 2: The space exploration and hopes for the future

Find out more about Brian Cox at his website, Apollo’s Children

JPL’s ‘Muscle Car’ – MSL – Takes Center Stage

JPL's 'Hot Wheels' - The Mars Science Laboratory or 'Curiosity' is being prepared to launch to mars this November. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA is experiencing what could be dubbed a “summer of planetary exploration.” With the Juno mission to Jupiter on its way as of Aug. 5, NASA is prepping not one but two more missions – this time to terrestrial bodies – specifically the Moon and Mars.

On Sept. 8 NASA is planning to launch GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory). This mirror image spacecraft consists of two elements that will fly in tandem with one another and scan the Moon from its core to its crust. This mission will serve to expand our understanding of the mechanics of how terrestrial bodies are formed. GRAIL will provide the most accurate gravitational map of the Moon to date.

The aeroshell that will cover both the MSL rover and its jetpack landing system. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

When it comes to upcoming projects that have “celebrity” status – few can compete with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) or Curiosity. The six-wheeled rover was part of a media event Friday Aug. 12 that included the “Sky-Crane” jetpack that is hoped will safely deliver the car-sized rover the Martian surface. Also on display was the back half of the rover’s aeroshell which will keep the robot safe as in enters the red planet’s atmosphere.

Numerous engineers were available for interview, one expert on hand to explain the intricacies of how Curiosity works was the Rover Integration Lead on the project, Peter Illsley.

One fascinating aspect of MSL is how the rover will land. As it pops free of the aeroshell, a jet pack will conduct a powered descent to Mars’ surface. From there the rover will be lowered to the ground via wires, making Curiosity look like an alien spider descending from its web. Once the rover makes contact with the ground, the wires will be severed and the “Sky-Crane” will fly off to conduct a controlled crash. Ben Thoma, the mechanical lead on this aspect of the project, described how he felt about what it is like to work on MSL.

MSL is slated to launch this November atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 541 rocket. If everything goes according to plan the rover will begin exploring Mars’ Gale Crater for a period of approximately two years. In every way Curiosity is an upgraded, super-charged version of the rovers that have preceded her. The Pathfinder rover tested out many of the concepts that led to the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity and now MSL has incorporated lessons learned to take more robust scientific explorations of the Martian surface.

The "Sky-Crane" jetpack that will be used to slowly lower the MSL rover to the Martian surface. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

GRAIL Twins ready for NASA Science Expedition to the Moon: Photo Gallery

NASA’s twin GRAIL Science Probes ready for Lunar Expedition. GRAIL B (left) and GRAIL A (right) spacecraft are mounted side by side on top of a payload adapter inside the clean room at Astrotech Space Operations facility. The spacecraft await lunar launch on Sept. 8, 2011. Credit: Ken Kremer

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NASA’s GRAIL twins – dubbed GRAIL-A & GRAIL-B – are ready to embark on America’s next science expedition to the moon in less than 1 month’s time from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft have been exhaustively tested, fueled for flight and mounted side-by-side on a specially designed payload adapter inside the controlled environment of a clean room at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in nearby Titusville, Fla.

The next processing step is to encapsulate the lunar probes inside their protective payload fairing. The duo are set to be shipped from Astrotech to their Cape Canaveral launch pad next week on Aug. 16, where they will be mated to an already assembled Delta II booster.

Liftoff of the GRAIL twins is slated for Sept. 8 at 8:37 a.m. EDT by a Delta II Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral for a nearly four month voyage to the moon.

After entering lunar orbit, the two GRAIL spacecraft will fly in a tandam formation just 50 kilometers above the lunar surface with an average separation of 200 km during the 90 day science phase.

Side view of twin GRAIL probes
The GRAIL spacecraft are mounted to a 3 inch high Launch Vehicle Adapter Assembly and 20 inch Payload Adapter spacer ring on top of a 30-inch high GSE stand. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)

GRAIL’s mission goal is to map the moon’s gravity field to high precision and thereby deduce the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core. This will also lead to a better understanding of the composition of the moon’s interior, according to Sami Asmar, GRAIL co-investigator from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasasdena, Calif., during an interview inside the Astrotech clean room at a photo opportunity for the media. A gravity experiment is also aboard the just launched Jupiter bound Juno spacecraft.

GRAIL Photo Album special taken from inside the Astrotech cleanroom facility.

Twin GRAIL lunar probes inside clean room at Astrotech. Credit: Ken Kremer
Close up of twin lunar probes, GRAIL- B (left) & GRAIL- A (right). Credit: Ken Kremer
GRAIL-B solar panels. Credit: Ken Kremer
GRAIL Science and Launch team inside clean room at Astrotech. Credit: Ken Kremer
GRAIL Co-Investigator Sami Asmar (left) from JPL and Ken Kremer discuss science objectives inside clean room at Astrotech.

In Their Own Words: Experts Talk Juno

Several scientists and experts discussed the Juno mission to Jupiter with Universe Today. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. – Many experts took time out of their hectic schedules to talk with Universe Today in the day leading up to the launch of the Juno spacecraft. Some even took the time to talk to us just minutes before the probe was scheduled to be launched on its mission. Check out what they had to say below:

Juno Project Scientist Steve Levin was at Kennedy Space Center to watch the Juno probe begin its five-year journey to Jupiter. He took a few minutes of his time to talk about what his expectations are for this mission.

Levin has been with JPL since 1990, one of the previous projects he worked on is the Planck mission which launched in 2009.

Levin believes that Juno could fundamentally change the way we view Jupiter. He was one of many VIPs that descended on Kennedy Space Center to watch as Juno thundered to orbit atop at Atlas V rocket.

Sami Asmar is part of the science team that is working on the Juno project. He was at the rollout of the Atlas rocket to the pad. Here is what he had to say about the mission (note the Atlas rocket moving out behind him).

Bill Nye the Science Guy was a very busy man while at Kennedy Space Center. He still took the time to chat with Universe Today about his views on this mission. Unfortunately, with little time to spare, we had to conduct the interview within minutes of the first launch attempt. A good chunk of Nye’s interview – was drowned out by the lead up to the countdown!

The usual launch of an Atlas consists of the launch team coming in, pushing a button and going home – the launch vehicle is that reliable. This day, things occurred quite differently. A technical issue coupled with a wayward boat that had drifted too close to the launch pad saw the launch time slip from 11:34 a.m. EDT to 12:25 p.m. When the rocket did take off however it was a spectacular sight to behold, faster than other iterations of the Atlas, it roared off the pad, sending Juno on its way to Jupiter.

New Opportunity for Students to Reach for the Stars and Send an Experiment to the Space Station

A new opportunity is available to students to have their experiments flown to the ISS. Credit: NAS

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A new opportunity is available for students and teachers to be part of history and fly the very first Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) mission to the International Space Station. This program is open to students from any country that is part of the ISS partnership, in grades 5-12 as well as colleges and universities.

This opportunity offers real research done on orbit, with students designing and proposing the experiments to fly to the space station.

“Science is not something that can only be carried out by an elite community of researchers,” Dr. Jeff Goldstein, the Director for the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education told Universe Today. “It’s really just organized curiosity, and can be undertaken by anyone. So to inspire our next generation of scientists and engineers, we thought we’d give students an opportunity to do real scientific research on America’s newest National Laboratory – the International Space Station.”

SSEP is a program that launched in June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in partnership with NanoRacks, LLC, a company that is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Two previous SSEP missions flew on the final shuttle flights, but this is the first to be part of the ISS science program.

NanoRacks hopes to stimulate space station research by providing a very low-cost 1 kilogram platform and other hardware that puts micro-gravity projects within the reach of universities and small companies, as well as elementary and secondary schools through SSEP. So, this is actually a commercial space program and not a NASA program.

On the previous SSEP missions with the space shuttles, 1,027 student team proposals were submitted with 27 experiments selected to fly, representing the 27 communities.

“We know even 5th graders can rise to this challenge and amaze us all,” Goldstein said, “and they already proved it on the final two flights of the Space Shuttle.”

The countries that can participate are the US, Canada, Japan and the European nations that are partners in the ISS program.

SSEP Mission 1 to ISS is now open for registration, with participating communities selected no later than September 30, 2012, so this is time critical.

Goldstein noted there are a significant number of resources that make this process straight-forward, including an instructionally designed recipe allowing teachers to easily facilitate the introduction of the program in the classroom, conduct experiment design, and do the proposal writing.

There are five categories of participation:

Pre-College (the core focus for SSEP) in the U.S., (grades 5-12), with a participating school district—even an individual school—providing stunning, real, on-orbit RESEARCH opportunities to their upper elementary, middle, and high school students

2-Year Community Colleges in the U.S., (grades 13-14), where the student body is typically from the local community, providing wonderful pathways for community-wide engagement

4-Year Colleges and Universities in the U.S., (grades 13-16), with an emphasis on Minority-Serving Institutions, where the program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and departments, and an opportunity for formal workforce development for science majors

Communities in the U.S. led by Informal Education or Out-of-School Organizations, (e.g., a museum or science center, a homeschool network, a boy scout troop), because high caliber STEM education programs must be accessible to organizations that promote effective learning beyond the traditional classroom

Communities in ISS Partner Nations: EU nations, Canada, and Japan with participation through NCESSE’s Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education.

Goldstein said the program is a U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative that gives up to 3,200 students across a community—middle and high school students (grades 5-12), and/or undergraduates the ability to fly their own experiments in low Earth orbit on the International Space Station.

For more information see the SSEP website

Read about the experience of previous SSEP program schools on the space shuttle

Watch a video of Dr. Jeff Goldstein talking about SSEP.

Replication of Arsenic Life Experiment Not Successful So Far

A replication of the arsenic life experiment being done by biologist Rosie Redfield. Image credit: Rosie Redfield.

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One of the most vocal and ardent critics of the so-called ‘arsenic life’ experiment which was published in December 2010 was biologist Rosie Redfield from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The science paper by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her team reported that a type of bacteria in Mono Lake in California can live and grow almost entirely on arsenic, a poison, and incorporates it into its DNA. Redfield called the paper “lots of flim-flam, but very little reliable information.” Her opinion was quickly seconded by many other biologists/bloggers.

Redfield has been working on replicating the experiment done by Wolfe-Simon, and doing in her work in front of the world, so to speak. She is detailing her work in an open lab notebook on her blog. So far, she reports that her results contradict Wolfe-Simon et al.’s observations.

To date, Redfield is finding that the bacteria, called GFAJ-1, is not living and growing in arsenic, but dying. Redfield says her work refutes that cells from the GFAJ-1 could use arsenic for growth in place of phosphorus, and when arsenic was added to the low-phosphorus medium in which the bacteria was living, the bacteria was killed. Additionally, in other test viles, the growth properties Redfield is finding for GFAJ-1 don’t match those reported by Wolfe-Simon and her team, which claimed that the bacteria could not grow on a low concentration of phosphorus, and that the bacteria could grow on arsenic in the absence of phosphorus.

Felisa Wolfe-Simon, right, a NASA astrobiology research fellow in residence at the USGS, and Ronald Oremland, an expert in arsenic microbiology at the USGS, examine sediment in August 2009 from Mono Lake in eastern California. Credit: © 2009 Henry Bortman

Redfield’s two major early criticisms of the original paper were that the authors had not ruled out the possibility that the bacteria were feeding on phosphorus contaminating their growth medium; and that the bacterial DNA was not properly purified, so that the arsenic detected might not actually have been in DNA.

An article in Nature reports that other researchers also working on replicating the experiment with GFAJ-1 laud Redfield’s efforts, but say it is too early to conclude that she has debunked the original work.

Additionally, one problem is that Redfield she did not replicate the experiment exactly, as she had to add one nutrient not used by the authors of the original arsenic life paper in order for the bacteria to grow.

This is not the first time scientists have written open notebooks during the replication of controversial findings, but it might be one of the more notable, given the amount of media attention the arsenic life paper received.

Redfield is also hoping that her work will highlight the benefits of open notebook-type research.

You can read Redfield’s blog about her work at this link.

Sources: Nature, Redfield’s blog.

Juno Spacecraft Honors Those Who Started It All

Juno begins its five-year journey to the planet Jupiter. On board are several artifacts meant to honor the history of the gas giant. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

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The Juno spacecraft, now safely on its way to the planet Jupiter, is carrying along with it several artifacts in honor of its voyage. Onboard the probe are three, tiny figurines of key players in the mythological and historical background of the gas giant. LEGO figurines of the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei have had their 1.5-inch likenesses added to the voyage.

In Roman mythology Jupiter had cast a veil of clouds over himself to hide his activities. Undeterred, his wife, Juno, peered through the clouds to see Jupiter’s true nature. Hence, her representation onboard the Juno spacecraft – is holding a spyglass. The last member of this odd ‘crew’ is Galileo, the man who made a number of important discoveries regarding the Jovian system.

From left-to-right: The Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno (with spyglass to check up on Jupiter's activities) and the famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. Photo Credit: NASA

The inclusion of these three figures is part of a joint effort between NASA and the LEGO group to spark interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or STEM in children. NASA went one step further in acknowledging the accomplishments of the man that made so many discoveries about this massive world. It has included a plaque in honor or Galileo.

During his life, Galileo contributed greatly to mankind’s understanding of the solar system. He discovered in 1610 what have since been dubbed the “Galilean moons” – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

This plaque is affixed to the Juno probe bound for Jupiter. It shows an illustration of Galileo as well as an inscription he made regarding the gas giant. Photo Credit: NASA

The plaque was donated by the Italian Space Agency and it measures 2.8 by 2 inches (71 by 51 millimeters). The plaque is manufactured from flight grade aluminum and weighs six grams or about 0.2 ounces. The plaque includes an illustration of the famous astronomer along with an inscription – in his own hand – a passage he made in 1610 concerning his observations of Jupiter. The inscription reads:

“On the 11th it was in this formation — and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.”

Juno thunders to orbit, with three very odd crew members on board. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian

Juno successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 12:25 p.m. EDT on Friday, August 5. It will take the probe about five years to reach Jupiter. Once there it will enter in a polar orbit around the world where it will use its suite of instruments to peer beneath the veil of Jupiter’s clouds to study the planet’s gravity, magnetosphere and whether-or-not the planet has a rocky core.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the Juno spacecraft.

It will take the Juno spacecraft five years to reach Jupiter. Each one of its massive solar arrays is about the size of a tractor-trailer. Image Credit: NASA