Never Be Afraid To Fail.

Why Webb Needs to Chill

Our massive James Webb Space Telescope is currently being tested to make sure it can work perfectly at incredibly cold temperatures when it’s in deep space. 

How cold is it getting and why? Here’s the whole scoop…

Webb is a giant infrared space telescope that we are currently building. It was designed to see things that other telescopes, even the amazing Hubble Space Telescope, can’t see.  

Webb’s giant 6.5-meter diameter primary mirror is part of what gives it superior vision, and it’s coated in gold to optimize it for seeing infrared light.  

Why do we want to see infrared light?

Lots of stuff in space emits infrared light, so being able to observe it gives us another tool for understanding the universe. For example, sometimes dust obscures the light from objects we want to study – but if we can see the heat they are emitting, we can still “see” the objects to study them.

It’s like if you were to stick your arm inside a garbage bag. You might not be able to see your arm with your eyes – but if you had an infrared camera, it could see the heat of your arm right through the cooler plastic bag.

Credit: NASA/IPAC

With a powerful infrared space telescope, we can see stars and planets forming inside clouds of dust and gas.

We can also see the very first stars and galaxies that formed in the early universe. These objects are so far away that…well, we haven’t actually been able to see them yet. Also, their light has been shifted from visible light to infrared because the universe is expanding, and as the distances between the galaxies stretch, the light from them also stretches towards redder wavelengths. 

We call this phenomena  “redshift.”  This means that for us, these objects can be quite dim at visible wavelengths, but bright at infrared ones. With a powerful enough infrared telescope, we can see these never-before-seen objects.

We can also study the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars. Many of the elements and molecules we want to study in planetary atmospheres have characteristic signatures in the infrared.

Because infrared light comes from objects that are warm, in order to detect the super faint heat signals of things that are really, really far away, the telescope itself has to be very cold. How cold does the telescope have to be? Webb’s operating temperature is under 50K (or -370F/-223 C). As a comparison, water freezes at 273K (or 32 F/0 C).

How do we keep the telescope that cold? 

Because there is no atmosphere in space, as long as you can keep something out of the Sun, it will get very cold. So Webb, as a whole, doesn’t need freezers or coolers - instead it has a giant sunshield that keeps it in the shade. (We do have one instrument on Webb that does have a cryocooler because it needs to operate at 7K.)

Also, we have to be careful that no nearby bright things can shine into the telescope – Webb is so sensitive to faint infrared light, that bright light could essentially blind it. The sunshield is able to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Earth and Moon, as well as the Sun.  

Out at what we call the Second Lagrange point, where the telescope will orbit the Sun in line with the Earth, the sunshield is able to always block the light from bright objects like the Earth, Sun and Moon.

How do we make sure it all works in space? 

By lots of testing on the ground before we launch it. Every piece of the telescope was designed to work at the cold temperatures it will operate at in space and was tested in simulated space conditions. The mirrors were tested at cryogenic temperatures after every phase of their manufacturing process.

The instruments went through multiple cryogenic tests at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Once the telescope (instruments and optics) was assembled, it even underwent a full end-to-end test in our Johnson Space Center’s giant cryogenic chamber, to ensure the whole system will work perfectly in space.  

What’s next for Webb? 

It will move to Northrop Grumman where it will be mated to the sunshield, as well as the spacecraft bus, which provides support functions like electrical power, attitude control, thermal control, communications, data handling and propulsion to the spacecraft.

Learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope HERE, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Woahh!!!

The Application of Sunblock in Visible and UV Light. 

(lifepixel)

In slow motion, vortex rings can be truly stunning. This video shows two bubble rings underwater as they interact with one another. Upon approach, the two low-pressure vortex cores link up in what’s known as vortex reconnection. Note how the vortex rings split and reconnect in two places – not one. According to Helmholtz’s second theorem a vortex cannot end in a fluid–it must form a closed path (or end at a boundary); that’s why both sides come apart and together this way. After reconnection, waves ripple back and forth along the distorted vortex ring; these are known as Kelvin waves. Some of those perturbations bring two sides of the enlarged vortex ring too close to one another, causing a second vortex reconnection, which pinches off a smaller vortex ring. (Image source: A. Lawrence; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)

Note: As with many viral images, locating a true source for this video is difficult. So far the closest to an original source I’ve found is the Instagram post linked above. If you know the original source, please let me know so that I can update the credit accordingly. Thanks!

(Image caption: New model mimics the connectivity of the brain by connecting three distinct brain regions on a chip. Credit: Disease Biophysics Group/Harvard University)

Multiregional brain on a chip

Harvard University researchers have developed a multiregional brain-on-a-chip that models the connectivity between three distinct regions of the brain. The in vitro model was used to extensively characterize the differences between neurons from different regions of the brain and to mimic the system’s connectivity.

The research was published in the Journal of Neurophysiology.

“The brain is so much more than individual neurons,” said Ben Maoz, co-first author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow in the Disease Biophysics Group in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “It’s about the different types of cells and the connectivity between different regions of the brain. When modeling the brain, you need to be able to recapitulate that connectivity because there are many different diseases that attack those connections.”

“Roughly twenty-six percent of the US healthcare budget is spent on neurological and psychiatric disorders,” said Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics Building at SEAS and Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. “Tools to support the development of therapeutics to alleviate the suffering of these patients is not only the human thing to do, it is the best means of reducing this cost.“

Researchers from the Disease Biophysics Group at SEAS and the Wyss Institute modeled three regions of the brain most affected by schizophrenia  — the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

They began by characterizing the cell composition, protein expression, metabolism, and electrical activity of neurons from each region in vitro.

“It’s no surprise that neurons in distinct regions of the brain are different but it is surprising just how different they are,” said Stephanie Dauth, co-first author of the paper and former postdoctoral fellow in the Disease Biophysics Group. “We found that the cell-type ratio, the metabolism, the protein expression and the electrical activity all differ between regions in vitro. This shows that it does make a difference which brain region’s neurons you’re working with.”

Next, the team looked at how these neurons change when they’re communicating with one another. To do that, they cultured cells from each region independently and then let the cells establish connections via guided pathways embedded in the chip.

The researchers then measured cell composition and electrical activity again and found that the cells dramatically changed when they were in contact with neurons from different regions.

“When the cells are communicating with other regions, the cellular composition of the culture changes, the electrophysiology changes, all these inherent properties of the neurons change,” said Maoz. “This shows how important it is to implement different brain regions into in vitro models, especially when studying how neurological diseases impact connected regions of the brain.”

To demonstrate the chip’s efficacy in modeling disease, the team doped different regions of the brain with the drug Phencyclidine hydrochloride — commonly known as PCP — which simulates schizophrenia. The brain-on-a-chip allowed the researchers for the first time to look at both the drug’s impact on the individual regions as well as its downstream effect on the interconnected regions in vitro.

The brain-on-a-chip could be useful for studying any number of neurological and psychiatric diseases, including drug addiction, post traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury.

"To date, the Connectome project has not recognized all of the networks in the brain,” said Parker. “In our studies, we are showing that the extracellular matrix network is an important part of distinguishing different brain regions and that, subsequently, physiological and pathophysiological processes in these brain regions are unique. This advance will not only enable the development of therapeutics, but fundamental insights as to how we think, feel, and survive.”

Self-assembling particles brighten future of LED lighting

Just when lighting aficionados were in a dark place, LEDs came to the rescue. Over the past decade, LED technologies – short for light-emitting diode – have swept the lighting industry by offering features such as durability, efficiency and long life.

Now, Princeton engineering researchers have illuminated another path forward for LED technologies by refining the manufacturing of light sources made with crystalline substances known as perovskites, a more efficient and potentially lower-cost alternative to materials used in LEDs found on store shelves.

The researchers developed a technique in which nanoscale perovskite particles self-assemble to produce more efficient, stable and durable perovskite-based LEDs. The advance, reported January 16 in Nature Photonics, could speed the use of perovskite technologies in commercial applications such as lighting, lasers and television and computer screens.

“The performance of perovskites in solar cells has really taken off in recent years, and they have properties that give them a lot of promise for LEDs, but the inability to create uniform and bright nanoparticle perovskite films has limited their potential,” said Barry Rand an assistant professor of electrical engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton.

Read more.

It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now.

Hugh Laurie (via liberatingreality)

From the TV series “The life of Mammals”.

(The Telegraph)

“People who never met her except across the footlights did not realize how, in her private life, she had such compassion and interest in everyone. After I returned from Hong Kong I was ill with a virus and she rang me up reproachfully later to say, ‘Why didn’t you let me know? I would have come and sit with you.’ Giving flowers to sick people is easy. Giving that precious commodity time is far more expensive for someone who had such a full life. But she always found time for everyone.” -Godfrey Winn

Whisper Of The Heart Vertical Pan Shots - Dir Yoshifumi Kondo (1995)

“I came to America when I was six years old. Mom said she brought us here so that we’d have opportunities in life. She said that back in the Bahamas, it’s only the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’ She wanted us to have more choices. But I don’t think she fully understood how things work here. She was a news reporter back in the Bahamas. But the only job she could get here was taking care of oldpeople. My dad could only work construction. We moved to four different states just so they could find work. They always told me, ‘Just study hard in school and everything will work out fine.’ So that was my plan. I got all A’s up until the 11th grade– except for one B in math. My goal was to get top twenty in my class, then go to college, then get a degree, and then get a job. I realized the truth my senior year. My guidance counselor told me I couldn’t get a loan. I couldn’t get financial aid. Even if I could find a way to pay for school, I probably couldn’t get a job. I felt so mad at everyone. There were some kids who completely slacked off in school, but even they were going to college. I started having panic attacks. My dad told me not to worry. He called me a ‘doubting Peter.’ He invited all his friends over to a fish fry to help raise money. And he did get $3,000. But that wasn’t enough. So I searched really hard on the Internet and found the Dream.us scholarship. My mom was so excited when I got it. They’re paying for me to go to Queens College. Now my mom’s really scared again because DACA got revoked. She’s crying all the time at work. I try to tell her that no matter what happens, we’re not going to die. We just might have to start over.”