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NASA”s new solar probe sheds light to whats going on...

August 2018, NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched to space, soon becoming the closest-ever spacecraft to the Sun. With cutting-edge scientific instruments to measure the environment around the spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe has completed three of 24 planned passes through never-before-explored parts of the Sun's atmosphere, the corona. On Dec. 4, 2019, four new papers in the journal Nature describe what scientists have learned from this unprecedented exploration of our star -- and what they look forward to learning next.

These findings reveal new information about the behavior of the material and particles that speed away from the Sun, bringing scientists closer to answering fundamental questions about the physics of our star. In the quest to protect astronauts and technology in space, the information Parker has uncovered about how the Sun constantly ejects material and energy will help scientists re-write the models we use to understand and predict the space weather around our planet and understand the process by which stars are created and evolve.

"This first data from Parker reveals our star, the Sun, in new and surprising ways," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Observing the Sun up close rather than from a much greater distance is giving us an unprecedented view into important solar phenomena and how they affect us on Earth, and gives us new insights relevant to the understanding of active stars across galaxies. It's just the beginning of an incredibly exciting time for heliophysics with Parker at the vanguard of new discoveries."

Though it may seem placid to us here on Earth, the Sun is anything but quiet. Our star is magnetically active, unleashing powerful bursts of light, deluges of particles moving near the speed of light and billion-ton clouds of magnetized material. All this activity affects our planet, injecting damaging particles into the space where our satellites and astronauts fly, disrupting communications and navigation signals, and even -- when intense -- triggering power outages. It's been happening for the Sun's entire 5-billion-year lifetime, and will continue to shape the destinies of Earth and the other planets in our solar system into the future.

"The Sun has fascinated humanity for our entire existence," said Nour E. Raouafi, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which built and manages the mission for NASA. "We've learned a great deal about our star in the past several decades, but we really needed a mission like Parker Solar Probe to go into the Sun's atmosphere. It's only there that we can really learn the details of these complex solar processes. And what we've learned in just these three solar orbits alone has changed a lot of what we know about the Sun."

What happens on the Sun is critical to understanding how it shapes the space around us. Most of the material that escapes the Sun is part of the solar wind, a continual outflow of solar material that bathes the entire solar system. This ionized gas, called plasma, carries with it the Sun's magnetic field, stretching it out through the solar system in a giant bubble that spans more than 10 billion miles.

The dynamic solar wind

Observed near Earth, the solar wind is a relatively uniform flow of plasma, with occasional turbulent tumbles. But by that point it's traveled over ninety million miles -- and the signatures of the Sun's exact mechanisms for heating and accelerating the solar wind are wiped out. Closer to the solar wind's source, Parker Solar Probe saw a much different picture: a complicated, active system.

"The complexity was mind-blowing when we first started looking at the data," said Stuart Bale, the University of California, Berkeley, lead for Parker Solar Probe's FIELDS instrument suite, which studies the scale and shape of electric and magnetic fields. "Now, I've gotten used to it. But when I show colleagues for the first time, they're just blown away." From Parker's vantage point 15 million miles from the Sun, Bale explained, the solar wind is much more impulsive and unstable than what we see near Earth.

Like the Sun itself, the solar wind is made up of plasma, where negatively charged electrons have separated from positively charged ions, creating a sea of free-floating particles with individual electric charge. These free-floating particles mean plasma carries electric and magnetic fields, and changes in the plasma often make marks on those fields. The FIELDS instruments surveyed the state of the solar wind by measuring and carefully analyzing how the electric and magnetic fields around the spacecraft changed over time, along with measuring waves in the nearby plasma.

These measurements showed quick reversals in the magnetic field and sudden, faster-moving jets of material -- all characteristics that make the solar wind more turbulent. These details are key to understanding how the wind disperses energy as it flows away from the Sun and throughout the solar system.

Science Bizz.

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Early humans domesticated themselves, new genetic evidence suggests

By Michael PriceDec. 4, 2019 , 5:00 PM

When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us. A new study—citing genetic evidence from a disorder that in some ways mirrors elements of domestication—suggests modern humans domesticated themselves after they split from their extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, approximately 600,000 years ago.

“The study is incredibly impressive,” says Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the new work. It’s “a really beautiful test,” he adds, of the long-standing idea that humans look so different from our primate ancestors precisely because we have become domesticated.

Domestication encompasses a whole suite of genetic changes that arise as a species is bred to be friendlier and less aggressive. In dogs and domesticated foxes, for example, many changes are physical: smaller teeth and skulls, floppy ears, and shorter, curlier tails. Those physical changes have all been linked to the fact that domesticated animals have fewer of a certain type of stem cell, called neural crest stem cells.

Modern humans are also less aggressive and more cooperative than many of our ancestors. And we, too, exhibit a significant physical change: Though our brains are big, our skulls are smaller, and our brow ridges are less pronounced. So, did we domesticate ourselves?

Giuseppe Testa, a molecular biologist at University of Milan in Italy, and colleagues knew that one gene, BAZ1B, plays an important role in orchestrating the movements of neural crest cells. Most people have two copies of this gene. Curiously, one copy of BAZ1B, along with a handful of others, is missing in people with Williams-Beuren syndrome, a disorder linked to cognitive impairments, smaller skulls, elfinlike facial features, and extreme friendliness.

To learn whether BAZ1B plays a role in those facial features, Testa and colleagues cultured 11 neural crest stem cell lines: four from people with Williams-Beuren syndrome, three from people with a different but related disorder in which they have duplicates instead of deletions of the disorder’s key genes, and four from people without either disorder. Next, they used a variety of techniques to tweak BAZ1B’s activity up or down in each of the stem cell lines.

That tweaking, they learned, affected hundreds of other genes known to be involved in facial and cranial development. Overall, they found that a tamped-down BAZ1B gene led to the distinct facial features of people with Williams-Beuren syndrome, establishing the gene as an important driver of facial appearance.

When the researchers looked at those hundreds of BAZ1B-sensitive genes in modern humans, two Neanderthals, and one Denisovan, they found that in the modern humans, those genes had accumulated loads of regulatory mutations of their own. This suggests natural selection was shaping them. And because many of these same genes have also been under selection in other domesticated animals, modern humans, too, underwent a recent process of domestication, the team reports today in Science Advances.

Wrangham cautions that many different genes likely play a role in domestication, so we shouldn’t read too much evolutionary importance into BAZ1B. “What they’ve zeroed in on is one gene that is incredibly important … but it’s clear there are going to be multiple other candidate genes.”

William Tecumseh Fitch III, an evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna, says he is skeptical of “precise parallels” between human self-domestication and animal domestication. “These are processes with both similarities and differences,” he says. “I also don’t think mutations in one or a few genes will ever make a good model for the many, many genes involved in domestication.”

As for why humans might have become domesticated in the first place, hypotheses abound. Wrangham favors the idea that as early people formed cooperative societies, evolutionary pressures favored mates whose features were less “alpha,” or aggressive. “There was active selection, for the very first time, against the bullies and the genes that favored their aggression,” he adds. But so far, “Humans are the only species that have managed this.”

Science Bizz.

Micheal Price (Article)

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Chandrayaan 2...

Chandrayaan 2 is India’s second mission to the moon to further study the extent of water molecules on its surface

The mission was launched from Sriharikota by ISRO on July 22

At present, the space vehicle has successfully completed its first de-orbiting manoeuvre ahead of the landing.

With President Ram Nath Kovind lauding the work done by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a recent address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting about the indigenous development of spacecraft and over 7.5K Indians gathering to witness the live launch on July 22 — Chandrayaan 2 has officially become the most talked about topic in the past month. And it all came to a crescendo in the early hours of September 7.

Chandrayaan 2 is India’s second mission to the moon to study the extent of water molecules on the moon’s surface, evidence of which was discovered by Chandrayaan 1. The moon mission includes a launcher, orbiter, Vikram lander, and the AI-powered Pragyan Rover.

September 7, 2019 | 14:35 PM

India’s space agency lost contact with the Chandrayaan’s Vikram Lander around 2.1 km over the lunar surface, in what was a big setback to India and ISRO’s maiden attempt to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. The lander began its 15-minute autonomous descent and overcame a rough breaking phase to go down from a height of 30 Kms to around 2.1 Kms, but it had veered slightly off the projected trajectory. Soon after, the lander lost contact with the ground station. The lunar orbiter, also part of Chandrayaan 2, which has several sensors and instruments onboard is safe and hovers around 100 Kms over the moon. It will continue to send data and readings.

As the trajectory graphs deviated on the screens at the control centre in Bengaluru, ISRO chairman K Sivan called it “15 minutes of terror” as the inability of the ground station to take control. Sivan was inconsolable as he told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had arrived to witness the landing, that communication was lost with the spacecraft.

Nevertheless, the global space community and enthusiasts lauded ISRO’s achievement; many social media comments centred around how quickly India has caught up to other leading space-faring nations and there were reminders about how early missions in those countries also ended unsuccessfully.

India can now look forward to the Aditya mission to study the corona of the sun, which is set to be launched in 2019-2020.

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PYRAMIDS...Untold Truth.

We all know the truth about pyramids? Or do we?

Well the answer is a big NO.

We the “common people” at least dont know about pyramids.

Today i am going to combine all info. Given to the world in 1 article. After you read this you will only be guessing theories in air still we will not know everything but at least something. So lets start....

THEORY1

Pyramids are tall structures AFAWK are used for “mummy burial”.

The limestone which is used was brought from nile. It would be very difficult to bring them by land so what might they have done?

Water!

They might have used ships. Proof?

Well scientists have found water canal going from nile to the giza and other pyramids. The purpose might be different but for now.....

How did they bring it up you ask?

They could have only got it up by hand.

Which would be very difficult.

Thats all right but how so perfect?

The giza is aligned with north star and the small ones beside the are aligned with the other 2 stars which was only possibel by ariel view

Then how?

Well this answer is clikcking eveyone. But is there a chance for aliens?

Proof u ask?

Scientists have found hyroglyphs(egyptian)

Stating “outer people of space”and have also seen pictures of “aliens” and “helicopters” like figures.

So what do you think?

Have theory or something more?

I will write more on this as i have more theories but finding proof.

Thank you,

Ishan Pant