British astronaut Tim Peake, feared that a potential breakdown between the UK and Russia could have left him stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).

Peake travelled to space last December aboard a Russian rocket, the Soyuz FG, in order to carry out research on the ISS for a duration of six months. Concerns emerged after increasing anti-Russian attitudes within the Commons which led Peake to fear Putin would abandon the use of the rocket for him to safely return to Earth after the mission, according to International Business Times.

However, UK Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood amid a UK-Russian relation debate, stated that Putin had assured him that he would not cut Peake loose and leave him stranded.

“I had the opportunity to meet President Putin at the Baku Azerbaijan Games last year and wasn’t quite expecting to see him, I have to say. But I did say to him that a friend of mine had cause to use Russian transport and was a bit concerned about international developments – the East and West – and he might get stuck at the end of his destination and not be able to get back.”

“Mr Putin grabbed my arm and said, ‘Mr Ellwood, tell Mr Peake we will not abandon him'”.

The cause for concern came after past conflicts have had an impact on astronauts residing in space. Russian cosmonaut and mechanical engineer, Sergei Krikalev was abandoned in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and didn’t return to Earth until 10 months later.

Peake is currently conducting experiments into new technologies aimed to help future human exploration missions and is the first British European Space Agency astronaut to visit the space station.

With the mission to Mars looming and the increasing costs that go with it, NASA have come up with a solution to produce a cheap and effective alternative to the rigid metal structures currently residing on the planet.

Aerospace engineers are working on the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) which will be an expandable structure that will be both easy to transport during missions and easily attached to the existing space station. According to CNN, the BEAM will be able to expand to nearly four times its size once in place and create a space around the size of a bedroom.

Bigelow Aerospace have already constructed a prototype that has been attached the International Space Station and will stay there for two years in order to evaluate its resistance to the severe conditions of space especially its structure since the need for these modules to be as strong as the current metal construction is paramount. The team, however, are keeping quiet on the materials used to construct these inflatable rooms but say that they will be made up of numerous layers of strong, Kevlar-like materials.

Robert Bigelow, founder and president of the company working on the project says “it’s a multiple-layered structure, and when something hits the first outer layer, it fractures and breaks up.”

Astronauts will monitor the prototype focusing on radiation, temperature and pressure to see how well it performs and if successful, will hopefully be intrinsically involved in future space exploration including NASA’s increasingly important research on Mars.

“We would like to be part of the process of establishing a lunar station and other kinds of space outposts — maybe someday helping to support Mars ambitions,” states Bigelow.

With the idea of humans potentially living on Mars, could these inflatable pods be our new Martian homes?

 

Scientists have long puzzled over the source of dark streaks that show on the slopes of Mars. New research from France now suggests that those streaks may have been carved by boiling water.

Low atmospheric pressure is the key behind the boiling water. Mars pressure is about 1/100th of the atmospheric pressure on Earth. Under such low pressure water boils very easily, similar to boiling water at high elevations on Earth. For example, at the top of Mt. Everest, water boils at 161 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 212 degrees. According to study co-author Susan Conway, with the Martian atmosphere only 5 to 10 millibars, liquid water boils no matter what the temperature is.

The scientists did lab experiments in which they allowed a block of ice to melt and seep into the underlying sediment, then examined the patterns that emerged as the water ran downhill. When they tested how flowing water reacted on a slope made of loose, fine-grained sand that resembles Martian soil, they found that under low-pressure conditions, such as are found on Mars, the water boiled so vigorously that it tossed grains of sand into the air. The sand piled up until it collapsed and started avalanches. The lab’s test slope developed channels that looked very much like those seen on Mars.

The streaks, known as RSL, or recurring slope lineae, were previously thought to be caused by dust avalanches, or the venting of carbon dioxide gas. Now the researchers feel fairly certain that the source of the streaks is water. Conway says that the study results show that, under conditions such as found on Mars, a fairly small amount of water can move “a disproportionately large amount of sediment,” much more than is possible under conditions found on Earth.

Conway says that the discovery that less water is needed for creating such planetary features as RSL is both good news and bad news for the idea of life on Mars. While the results show that there is the possibility of liquid water on Mars, it also shows that there is likely very little and that it does not last long enough to be a good environment for microorganisms.

The findings from the research, which took place at the University of Nantes in France, and the National Center for Scientific Research, also in France, were published in the journal Nature Geoscience on May 2.

Three Earth-sized planets have been discovered by astronomers and believe they could have potential habitats for life.

The discovery was made by a team from the University of Liège in Belgium, led by Michael Gillon and Emmanuel Jehin who decided to take a chance and start investigating the space surrounding one “ultracool” dwarf star, according to CNN.

The star, which is barely the size of Jupiter and much cooler than our own sun, amazed the researchers who discovered three orbiting planets that are the most similar to Earth outside of our solar system. The researchers think that they could contain temperate-like conditions that could potentially sustain life like that on our own planet.

The TRAPPIST-1 star – named after the telescope that made the discovery – is a brown dwarf and these types of star don’t often have planets orbiting them. The team used an infrared spectrum to study the spacing between the planets and the star to determine how big the exoplanets were and how far they are situated from their sun. What they discovered was that the distance they orbit could harbor conditions for water to exist in liquid form.

“Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we can detect life on an Earth-sized exoplanet with our current technology,” Gillon states. “So if we want to find life elsewhere in the universe, this is where we should start to look.”

The planets and their star are located 40 light years away which makes it impossible for current space travel to reach but powerful telescopes can be used to monitor them for signs of carbon dioxide, oxygen and methane gases however more research needs to be made to find out if these planets have atmospheres that can accommodate these.

Adam Burgasser of University of California in San Diego, who also contributed to the published study, thinks that the discovery of these planets could mean that there are more out there than previously thought rising to the idea that there could potentially be a higher chance of life existing outside of our solar system.

“If Earth-like planets around these stars turn out to be common, there may be many more habitable planets out there than current estimates predict.”

The study was recently published in the journal Nature.

image credit: ESO/M.Kornmesser

A new discovery by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows exactly how little we know about the world’s oceans.

While on a deep-sea expedition, the researchers at NOAA came across a bizarre new species of jellyfish around two miles below the surface. It belongs to a species called Crossota that tends to continually float along for the entirety of its life.

According to Discovery News, the jellyfish was captured on video while the team were searching in a particular part of the deepest ocean called the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. Using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operated from the research vessel Okeanos Explorer, the team of scientists honed in on an underwater mountain called the Enigma Seamount named because of its rather unknown territory, and found several other features that were previously undiscovered.

“Its morphology is quite different from other seamounts in the region, which generally have a flat top with steep, smooth sides radiating out into narrow ridges,” say the team who took part in the expedition, “By contrast, this one is more circular in form and the sides are much less smooth.”

The newly discovered jellyfish, with its rather alien look, glided smoothly and effortlessly through the water with its two sets of tentacles spreading outwards and a very still, pulsating body. The researchers believe this species is an ambush predator which is typical of the Crossota species.

With deep-sea exploration being difficult due to the immense pressure the further we go towards the ocean floor, technology needs to be more advanced in order to discover what other new species are lurking at the bottom.

“The deep seafloor of the Pacific Ocean is one of the most poorly explored regions on Earth with very little known about the benthic animals that live beyond 3,000 feet in the Prime Crust Zone,” the NOAA said.

Two further legs of the expedition are scheduled for the end of May and June.

image credit: Discovery News

Australia’s native carp population is under attack as a new hybrid of invasive carp species is costing the Australian government millions of dollars a year.

Australia’s new Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce has made plans to target the alien species as it reeks havoc and is quickly decimating the country’s native carp species. According to UPI, the damage has caused their economy $500 million dollars a year as well as formidable ecological repercussions.

The government’s solution is to release a strain of the herpes virus called cyprinid herpesvirus 3 into Australia’s largest river systems in the attempt to kill off the alien carp species. At the moment, it’s estimated they take up nearly 80 to 90 percent of all fish in the Murray-Darling river system in southeastern Australia.

It’s estimated to be a two year operation as preparation has to be made to get rid of the many carp corpses with 2018 planned as the end of the carp-killing procedure.

“We would expect to release the virus by the end of 2018, because as you can imagine there is a lot of work to be done in preparation for the outcome,” Christopher Pyne, Australia’s science minister stated, “Because suddenly, there will literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tonnes, of carp that will be dead in the River Murray.”

The government estimate it will cost $15 million to carry out the plan and, if successful, will wipe out 80 to 90 percent of the carp population. The only potential risk is that the carp start developing a resistance to the herpes virus.

“The virus kills large numbers of the target for the first couple of years but gradually, over time, some resistance builds up. However, numbers never recover to their original levels.”

Ecologists are welcoming the plan as the carp are threatening other species of native fish and with the carp females producing up to a million eggs per year, they have fast become a huge pest in the Australian waterways.

 

 

 

A new study published May 2 in the journal Nature reveals the genetic history of ice age Europe, and how those early humans contributed to the genetic composition of modern Europeans. Researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute analyzed DNA found in ancient bones in a study that reveals the migration patterns of ancient Europeans, as well as offering a picture of the dramatic population change that occurred in Europe between 45,000 and 7,000 years ago.

The team used genomes of 51 different individuals, which represent most of the known human skeletons from the period between 45,000 and 7,000 years ago. Before this study there were only four available samples of prehistoric Europeans that offered genomic data that could be studied. The new study provides a much clearer picture of European history.

Study leader David Reich said in a statement that 51 samples changed everything for the purposes of study, offering a sense of dynamic changes over time. The study was made possible only because of recent technological advancements that allowed the degraded DNA from ancient remains to be analyzed.

The data has revealed details about ice age Europeans such as eye color, skin color, and how different groups were related. For example, ancient Europeans tended to have brown eyes and dark complexions. Blue eyes appeared about 14,000 years ago and pale skin emerged 7,000 years ago.

The analysis revealed that later populations saw very little effect from the migration of other groups onto the continent. Instead, the distinct groups of Europeans that branched out beginning around 37,000 years ago were descended from a single founding population from southwestern Europe. Only later, about 14,000 years ago, did new migrations from eastern Europe cause significant population turnovers.

Reich says, “We see very different genetics spreading across Europe that displaces the people from the southwest who were there before. These people persisted for many thousands of years until the arrival of farming.”

The researchers also found some mixture with Neanderthals around 45,000 years ago, that occurred with the spread of modern humans across Europe. Although humans today have only about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, prehistoric humans had 3 to 6 percent. “Neanderthal DNA is slightly toxic to modern humans,” explained Reich. According to this study, natural selection appears to be removing Neanderthal ancestry.