spaceplasma:

NASA Probe Gets Close Views of Large Saturn Hurricane

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

“We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth,” said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn’s hydrogen atmosphere.”

Scientists will be studying the hurricane to gain insight into hurricanes on Earth, which feed off warm ocean water. Although there is no body of water close to these clouds high in Saturn’s atmosphere, learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapor could tell scientists more about how terrestrial hurricanes are generated and sustained.

Both a terrestrial hurricane and Saturn’s north polar vortex have a central eye with no clouds or very low clouds. Other similar features include high clouds forming an eye wall, other high clouds spiraling around the eye, and a counter-clockwise spin in the northern hemisphere.

A major difference between the hurricanes is that the one on Saturn is much bigger than its counterparts on Earth and spins surprisingly fast. At Saturn, the wind in the eye wall blows more than four times faster than hurricane-force winds on Earth. Unlike terrestrial hurricanes, which tend to move, the Saturnian hurricane is locked onto the planet’s north pole. On Earth, hurricanes tend to drift northward because of the forces acting on the fast swirls of wind as the planet rotates. The one on Saturn does not drift and is already as far north as it can be.

“The polar hurricane has nowhere else to go, and that’s likely why it’s stuck at the pole,” said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

Scientists believe the massive storm has been churning for years. When Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, Saturn’s north pole was dark because the planet was in the middle of its north polar winter. During that time, the Cassini spacecraft’s composite infrared spectrometer and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer detected a great vortex, but a visible-light view had to wait for the passing of the equinox in August 2009. Only then did sunlight begin flooding Saturn’s northern hemisphere. The view required a change in the angle of Cassini’s orbits around Saturn so the spacecraft could see the poles.

“Such a stunning and mesmerizing view of the hurricane-like storm at the north pole is only possible because Cassini is on a sportier course, with orbits tilted to loop the spacecraft above and below Saturn’s equatorial plane,” said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “You cannot see the polar regions very well from an equatorial orbit. Observing the planet from different vantage points reveals more about the cloud layers that cover the entirety of the planet.”

Cassini changes its orbital inclination for such an observing campaign only once every few years. Because the spacecraft uses flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan to change the angle of its orbit, the inclined trajectories require attentive oversight from navigators. The path requires careful planning years in advance and sticking very precisely to the planned itinerary to ensure enough propellant is available for the spacecraft to reach future planned orbits and encounters.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

confusedtree:

nerdsofafeather:

sweetsfiend:

Since my eyes couldn’t handle the 3D of a bigger screen (and I do cherish my old 3DS too much), I’ve decided to make someone on tumblr happy with their very own Pikachu Limited Edition 3DS XL! I’m really excited to be doing this, and I can just hope it will make someone smile.

No, I won’t be selling it. I am not obligated to answer why, because if you honestly want me to sell it, my answer won’t be sufficient for you. Message me off anon if you’re really dying to know.

Now that the boring parts are over with, let’s go over even more boring stuff, shall we?

• Reblogs and likes both count and will combined give you two entries.
• You don’t need to be following me. However it would be nice to meet new people, and I do post a lot of Pokémon.
• I’ll ship internationally, but the system is European.
• No giveaway blogs.
• Have your ask box open so that I may contact you.

The giveaway will end on May 10. Have fun, okay? (◡‿◡✿)

I know a certain friend of mine who would love a 3DS.

Hey guys just remember that the 3DS is region locked

scinerds:

Scientists map protein that creates antibiotic resistance

Japanese researchers have determined the detailed molecular structure of a protein that rids cells of toxins, but can also reduce the effectiveness of some antibiotics and cancer drugs by kicking them out of the cells they are targeting.

The scientists have also identified a molecule that can thwart the activity of the protein, one of a class known as multidrug and toxic compound extrusion transporters (MATEs) that are found in cell membranes. The discovery suggests new approaches to combat antibiotic resistance and boost the power of cancer therapies, the team reports today in Nature.

Previous efforts to identify compounds that block MATE transporters have been unsuccessful, partly because researchers had a poor understanding of how these proteins work. But in the past three years scientists have made some progress mapping the transporters’ detailed architecture. Two different labs have already revealed the structures of two bacterial MATE proteins, suggesting a mechanism by which the proteins extrude toxins from cells.

“I think this is a major step forward,” says Hendrik Van Veen, a pharmacologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. “They have a direct mechanism of how the protons change the shape of the cavity.”

Full Article

the-science-llama:

Closest Star System Found in a Century

Say hello to our new neighbors.

The star system is named “WISE J104915.57-531906″ because it was discovered in a map of the entire sky obtained by the NASA-funded Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite. It is only slightly farther away than the second-closest star, Barnard’s star, which was discovered 6.0 light years from the Sun in 1916. The closest star system consists of Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbor of the Sun in 1839 at 4.4 light years, and the fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1917 at 4.2 light years.

First question, how did we miss this?

The new system is a binary system of brown dwarfs which are stars that are too small in mass to ever become hot enough to ignite hydrogen fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim, resembling a giant planet like Jupiter more than a bright star like the sun. Oh that’s how we missed it.

Via NASA, Earthsky

okayophelia:

S P A C E  I S  H O L Y  | (x)

For when humanity stretches out its hand and pierces the heavens with a thought and a body falling through space, when we draw lines through exploding stars and spinning solar systems and worship at the altar of an ever expanding horizon. When we never stop free falling outward into nebulas and onward in our fleets of light into the unexplored and uncharted depths. When we peer through the vast and little glory of our own perception and into something that, though beyond even our gods, lies within our very skin. When we feel the stardust exploding in our veins. When the universe is a cruel and indifferent god; full beauteous with the faith of physics arcing through its depths in time out of mind and out of the shining need buried in our guts. Then, we fly.

On The Nature of Daylight, MAX RICHTER • Thin Blue Flame, JOSH RITTER • Parallel Universe, GYPSY & THE CAT • Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun, M83 • The Surface of the Sun, JOHN MURPHY • Alegría, CIRQUE DU SOLEIL • Dauðalogn, SIGUR ROS •  Set The Fire To The Third Bar, SNOW PATROL • Battlestar Sonatica, BEAR MCREARY • Death is the Road to Awe, CLINT MANSELL •  Now We Are Free, ENYA • Just Like You Imagined, NIN

medicalschool:

Legionella is a pathogenic Gram negative bacterium, including species that cause legionellosis, most notably L. pneumophila. It may be readily visualized with a silver stain.

nasafans:

“This glorious view of Saturn was taken while the Cassini spacecraft was in Saturn’s shadow. The cameras were turned toward Saturn and the sun so that the planet and rings are backlit. In addition to the visual splendor, this special, very-high-phase viewing geometry lets scientists study ring and atmosphere phenomena not easily seen at a lower phase.” - NASA JPL

Read more here.