My Science School

Saturn is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium, the two basic gases of the universe. The planet also bears traces of ices containing ammonia, methane, and water. Unlike the rocky terrestrial planets, gas giants such as Saturn lack the layered crust-mantle-core structure, because they formed differently from their rocky siblings.

Saturn is classified as a gas giant because it is almost completely made of gas. Its atmosphere bleeds into its "surface" with little distinction. If a spacecraft attempted to touch down on Saturn, it would never find solid ground. Of course, the craft would be fortunate to survive long before the increasing pressure of the planet crushed it.

Because Saturn lacks a traditional ground, scientists consider the surface of the planet to begin when the pressure exceeds one bar, the approximate pressure at sea level on Earth.

At higher pressures, below the determined surface, hydrogen on Saturn becomes liquid. Traveling inward toward the center of the planet, the increased pressure causes the liquefied gas to become metallic hydrogen. Saturn does not have as much metallic hydrogen as the largest planet, Jupiter, but it does contain more ices. Saturn is also significantly less dense than any other planet in the solar system; in a large enough pool of water, the ringed planet would float.

As on Jupiter, the liquid metallic hydrogen drives the magnetic field of Saturn. Saturn's magnetosphere is smaller than its giant sibling, but still significantly more powerful than those found on the terrestrial planets. With a magnetosphere large enough to contain the entire planet and its rings, Saturn's magnetic field is 578 times as powerful as Earth's.

Credit : Space.com

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Saturn's rings are made of billions of pieces of ice, dust and rocks. Some of these particles are as small as a grain of salt, while others are as big as houses. These chucks of rock and ice are thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids or even moons which were torn apart by the strong gravity of Saturn before they could reach the planet.

Galileo Galilei was the first to see Saturn's rings in 1610, although from his telescope the rings looked more like handles or arms. Forty five years later, in 1655, Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who had a more powerful telescope, later proposed that Saturn had a thin, flat ring.

As scientists developed better instruments, they continued to learn more about the structure and composition of the rings. Saturn actually has many rings made of billions of particles of ice and rock, ranging in size from a grain of sugar to the size of a house. The particles are believed to be debris left over from comets, asteroids or shattered moons. A 2016 study also suggested the rings may be the carcasses of dwarf planets.

The largest ring spans 7,000 times the diameter of the planet. The main rings are typically only about 30 feet (9 meters) thick, but the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft revealed vertical formations in some of the rings, with particles piling up in bumps and ridges more than 2 miles (3 km) high.

The rings are named alphabetically in the order they were discovered. The main rings, working out from the planet, are known as C, B and A. The innermost is the extremely faint D ring, while the outermost to date, revealed in 2009, is so big that it could fit a billion Earths within it. The Cassini Division, a gap some 2,920 miles (4,700 km) wide, separates rings B and A.

Credit : Space.com

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After graduating from Seattle High School in 1910, Ball went on to study at the University of Washington, achieving two bachelor’s degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry and the science of pharmacy by 1914. That same year, she co-authored a paper on benzoylations in ether solution that was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society, a rare feat for a Black woman at this time.

In 1915, Ball became the first woman and the first African-American person to receive a master’s degree from the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawai’i) and to teach chemistry there. She became the head of the chemistry department later that year. As a postgraduate, she researched the chemical makeup and active ingredients of kava root (Piper methysticum).

It was this work that led Harry T. Hollmann, an assistant surgeon at Kalihi Hospital in Honolulu, to ask Ball to join his team researching treatments for leprosy, a chronic bacterial infection that can lead to skin lesions and nerve damage.

At the time, leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) was a highly stigmatised condition. In Hawai’i, people with severe cases were exiled to a facility called Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai, where they were forced to live in isolation until they died. The US novelist Jack London described Kalaupapa as “the pit of hell, the most cursed place on earth”.

The only treatment for the disease at the time was an oil taken from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree (Hydnocarpus wightianus), a plant native to eastern regions of Asia that had been used in traditional medicine since the 1300s. The application of chaulmoogra oil was extremely difficult – its acrid taste often induced vomiting, while it was hard to use topically because it was too sticky. Injecting the oil was extremely painful and it would often clump under the skin to form blisters.

Credit : New Scientist

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Alice Ball was an African American chemist who developed the first successful treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Ball was also the very first African American and the first woman to graduate with a M.S. degree in chemistry from the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawaii). Tragically, Ball died at the young age of 24. During her brief lifetime, she did not get to see the full impact of her discovery. It was not until years after her death that Ball got the proper credit she deserved.

After earning undergraduate degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry (1912) and pharmacy (1914) from the University of Washington, Alice Ball transferred to the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawaii) and became the very first African American and the very first woman to graduate with a M.S. degree in chemistry in 1915. She was offered a teaching and research position there and became the institution’s very first woman chemistry instructor. She was only 23 years old.

As a laboratory researcher, Ball worked extensively to develop a successful treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Her research led her to create the first injectable leprosy treatment using oil from the chaulmoogra tree, which up until then, was only a moderately successful topical agent that was used in Chinese and Indian medicine. Ball successfully isolated the oil into fatty acid components of different molecular weights allowing her to manipulate the oil into a water soluble injectable form. Ball’s scientific rigor resulted in a highly successful method to alleviate leprosy symptoms, later known as the “Ball Method,” that was used on thousands of infected individuals for over thirty years until sulfone drugs were introduced.

Credit : Biography.com

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Comparing a battery and a fuel cell may be confusing as both can be used as sources of power, but in different ways. In battery electric vehicles, batteries store and deliver energy to the powertrain. A fuel cell electric vehicle generates electricity using hydrogen as fuel, and also delivers energy to the powertrain. The fuel cell can also charge the battery. The hydrogen itself acts as an energy carrier and storage device, much like a battery. However, most fuel cells configurations have limited ability to manage the powertrain energy demand in a dynamic fashion like batteries can. It’s the battery system that provides the quick response required to match the load demand from the powertrain.  

Fuel cells still provide a necessary enhancement to improve many of the performance and operational gaps we see in battery electric vehicles. Also, fuel cells have the potential to better utilize renewable energy on a large scale and increase the adoption of sustainable power sources faster. 

Ultimately, it’s not a matter of which technology is better — but rather which is more suitable to a customer’s conditions and needs. Battery electric solutions can effectively serve many transportation sectors. Where they fall short, fuel cells can help accommodate.  

Credit : Cummins

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John Bardeen was an American engineer and physicist. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon N Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS theory.

The transistor revolutionized the electronics industry, making possible the development of almost every modern electronic device, from telephones to computers, and ushering in the Information Age. Bardeen's developments in superconductivity—for which he was awarded his second Nobel Prize—are used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Bardeen received a PhD in physics from Princeton University. After serving in World War II, he was a researcher at Bell Labs, and a professor at the University of Illinois. In 1990, Bardeen appeared on Life magazine's list of "100 Most Influential Americans of the Century

In 1956, John Bardeen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with William Shockley of Semiconductor Laboratory of Beckman Instruments and Walter Brattain of Bell Telephone Laboratories "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".

At the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Brattain and Shockley received their awards that night from King Gustaf VI Adolf. Bardeen brought only one of his three children to the Nobel Prize ceremony. King Gustav chided Bardeen because of this, and Bardeen assured the King that the next time he would bring all his children to the ceremony. He kept his promise.

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Alice Augusta Ball was an African American chemist who developed an injectable oil extract, the first successful treatment for leprosy. It was used until the 1940s. However, she did not get credit for her discovery for nearly 90 years. Some attribute this to gender and racial discrimination.

Ball was born in 1892, in Washington, to James Presley, a newspaper editor, and Laura Louise, a photographer. After graduating from Seattle High School in 1910, Ball earned her bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Washington, and her master's degree from the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawaii), in 1915. Alice Ball was the first woman and first African American to receive a master's degree from the University of Hawaii and the first woman chemistry professor at the university.

In her postgraduate research career at the University of Hawaii, Ball investigated the chemical makeup and active principle of Piper methysticum (kava - a herbal plant grown in the Pacific islands) for her master's thesis.

Impressed with her work, Dr. Harry T. Hollmann, a doctor at the Kalihi Hospital in Hawaii that treated patients with leprosy, reached out to Ball to isolate the active chemical compounds in chaulmoogra oil. Chaulmoogra oil had previously been used in the treatment of leprosy with mixed results and severe side effects. An ideal treatment, Dr. Hollmann thought, would be a solution made from the active components of the oil that could be injected without side effects.

In less than a year, Ball developed a technique that would allow the oil from chaulmoogra tree seeds to become injectable and absorbable by the body. She was just 23 years then. Her newly developed technique involved isolating ethyl ester compounds from the fatty acids of the chaulmoogra oil. This isolation technique, later known as the Ball Method, was the only pain-free treatment for leprosy available for over thirty years until sulfone drugs were introduced. Unfortunately, Ball died in 1916, at the young age of 24, before publishing her findings. The president of the College of Hawaii, Dr. Arthur Dean, continued and published Ball's research without giving her credit for the discovery. Dean even called the treatment. "Dean Method." Ball's name might have been completely forgotten but thanks to Dr. Hollmann, who in a 1922 medical journal credited Ball for creating the chaulmoogra solution and referred to it as the "Ball Method."

Even so, Ball remained largely forgotten until 2000, when the University of Hawaii placed a bronze plaque in front of a chaulmoogra tree on campus to honour Ball's discovery. In 2007, the University of Hawaii posthumously awarded her with the Regents Medal of Distinction.

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What you need:

Two sheets of paper, Two glasses, Water, Liquid dish soap

What to do:

1. Fill both glasses with water. In one of the glasses, add about 30 ml of dish soap. Gently stir it.

2. Now, wad both the papers into balls that can fit into your glasses.

3. Gently, drop one ball into each glass.

What happens:

The paper ball floats near the top of the glass containing plain water. But it sinks deeper into the glass containing the soapy solution.

Why?

The answer lies in surface tension. Surface tension is the force that keeps the molecules of a liquid bound to each other at the surface of the liquid. This makes the top of a liquid act like an elastic sheet, one you need to push through if you want to go deeper into it. Try dipping your finger into water and you'll understand.

Soap is a surfactant. A surfactant is a substance which can reduce the surface tension of a liquid. By that it means, that it can loosen the bond between the molecules at the surface of the liquid. That's exactly what the soap does. So, now that the surface tension of the water is lowered, the paper cannot sit atop it and sinks deeper. Weakened bonds between the water molecules also means that they are able to soak into the paper more freely causing it to become heavier and sink.

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What you need:

Two Styrofoam plates, A towel

What to do:

1. Rub the base of one of the plates with the towel and keep it on the table, base side up.

2. Now, place the second Styrofoam plate on top of the first face up.

What happens:

The second plate slides off the first on its own! If you try to hold the second plate above the first, the second plate will push towards your hand in its effort to move away from the first plate.

Magic? Levitation? Not really

Why?

It's static electricity! 'Static means stationary. When you rub two objects against each other (like the plate and the towel), they develop stationary electrical charges. To understand why this happens, we have to go to the microscopic level. Everything in our world is made up of tiny particles called 'atoms.

These atoms are, in turn, made up of even smaller particles known as electrons, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons remain inside the atom but the electrons like to use any excuse to jump in and out of the atom. When you rub two objects together, the electrons from one object jump to the other. This exchange of electrons is what is termed as electrical charge. Electrical charges attract or repel each other depending on their kind. If two objects have same electrical charges, these charges repel each other. Opposite charges, on the other hand, attract. In case of the Styrofoam plates, there is a repelling charge between the two that makes the plates refuse to stay together!

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What you need:

Only a toothpick!

What you do:

1. Place the toothpick towards the tip of your middle finger at the back and under the first and third fingers.

2. Try to break the toothpick by pressing it down with your first and third fingers.

3 Next, move the toothpick down towards the base of the middle finger and under the first and the third fingers.

4 Once again, press it down with your first and third fingers.

What you find:

It is easier to break the toothpick when you place it towards the base of the middle finger rather than high up.

Why?

The fingers act as a second-class lever similar to a nutcracker. The point of rotation or fulcrum is where the fingers join the hand. When the toothpick is placed furthest from the fulcrum, the force needed to break the toothpick is the greatest. The more the distance between the load and the fulcrum the more is the effort required to overcome it. Thus, by placing the toothpick close to the fulcrum, you require less effort to break the toothpick.

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What you need:

A one-litre plastic bottle, An eyedropper, A vessel, Water

What to do:

1. Fill the bottle with water.

2. Fill some water in the vessel too. Fill water in the dropper and drop it in the vessel. Adjust the water in the dropper so it floats in the water.

3. Now, put the dropper into the bottle. Fill the bottle to the brim with water and close its cap.

4. Place the bottle upright on a table or a flat surface and wrap one hand around it. Gently, squeeze the sides of the bottle.

What happens:

The dropper dives to the base of the bottle when you squeeze it and floats back up when the bottle is released.

Why?

When you squeeze the bottle, you apply pressure on it. This causes the water in the bottle to get forced into the eyedropper (you can see the water level inside rise if you watch carefully). The air in the eyedropper also gets compressed and pushed to the top of the dropper because now more water is sharing its space. This increases the mass of the dropper and its density (i.e. the number of molecules packed into a small space). And dense objects sink. When you release the squeeze, the pressure on the dropper is released too. The extra water flows out of the dropper and the air is able to decompress. This lowers the density of the dropper and it can float once more.

In this case, the eyedropper acts as a 'Cartesian Diver. Named after Rene Descartes, a French philosopher and mathematician, a Cartesian diver is an object that demonstrates the laws of buoyancy in a liquid.

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If humans were to set up home on another planet, scientists say. Mars is our best bet. The interest in sending humans to Mars has never been greater, as many space agencies-private and government-funded - are developing their own human spaceflight to Mars. The U.S. space agency NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s. While Russia plans to send humans in the 2040s, China hopes to do so by 2033. The UAE. a new entrant to space exploration, plans to put a human settlement on Mars within the next 100 years. Mars One and SpaceX also have their eyes set on Mars in the coming decades.

But the question is ‘What is it like to live on Mars?’ To answer that scientists have been recreating Mars-like habitats on Earth! Called Mars analogue habitats, they help prepare astronauts, engineers, and researchers for the future challenges of sending a crewed mission to the Red Planet

NASA has recently set up similar facilities called CHAPEA (short for Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) inside its Johnson Space Center in Houston and has invited volunteers with certain qualifications to become crew members at these habitats. What's CHAPEA? What's its purpose?

CHAPEA is a series of analogue missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1.700 square foot habitat. According to the NASA website, the 3D printed habitat will include private crew quarters, a kitchen, and dedicated areas for medical, recreation, fitness, work, and crop growth activities, as well as a technical work area and two bathrooms. Such a 3D-printed home has been prefered because it is likely that future habitats used during space exploration on Mars will be 3D-printed to prevent the need for launching large, heavy building materials.

What will the CHAPEA crew members do?

During the mission, the crew will conduct simulated spacewalks and provide data on a variety of factors, which may include physical and behavioural health and performance. They will consume ready-to-eat space food and will try to grow plants. The paid volunteers will try to survive with limited communications back home, restricted resources and equipment failures. Exercising, hygiene activities, maintenance work and science work are some of the other activities planned for the volunteers.

What is the purpose of this analogue?

Researchers will analyse the social and teamwork dynamics of the crew. The programme will be critical in understanding how trained individuals will perform under the rigours and pressures of a Mars mission.

Specifically, it will not only highlight operational challenges, but will also illuminate the physical and mental health challenges that future astronauts may encounter in long-duration space missions.

When will the project begin?

NASA is planning three of these experiments with the first one starting in the fall next year (September 2022).

Where were some of the past Mars analogue habitats located?

• The Mars Society, a space advocacy group established the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in 2000 in the territory of Nunavut, Canada. FMARS Crew 11 remained in the Martian simulation for 100 days.
• It set up its second habitat in Utah, whose crew members focussed on conducting field research in simulated Martian conditions.
• The Mars-500 mission was a series of experiments conducted between 2007 and 2011 and sponsored by Russia, the European Space Agency, and China. Unlike other Mars Analog missions, Mars-500 did not take place in a Mars-like environment, but in a Moscow research institute. An important focus of the Mars-500 research was the diagnosis of "adverse personal dynamics” which would affect cooperation among the crew.

How I can humans live on Mars, if they were to settle there?

Compared to other planets, Mars has its advantages when it comes to human habitation. It is the closest planet to Earth. Its soil contains water and there is enough sunlight to use solar panels Human body can adapt to the gravity on Mars, which is 38% that of Earth's, and day-length in Mars is similar to that of Earth. However, humans cannot live on Mars like they do on Earth

 

Mars has no oxygen in its atmosphere and it is very cold on its surface - the average temperature of Earth is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, while the average temperature on Mars is minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There's also virtually no air pressure. Mars temperature variations often result in powerful dust storms. Though these storms probably wouldn't physically harm us, the dust could dog electronics and interfere with solar powered instruments.

So, to survive on Mars, humans will need special equipment and pressurised and heated habitats. The habitats are to be self-sustaining sealed against the thin atmosphere, and capable of supporting life for extended periods of time. Humans will also need a spacesuit whenever they go outside the habitat. Despite wearing a suit, radiation from space could ham the human settlers.

For a longer stay, humans will have to figure out how to extract water from underground supplies, and how to produce their own food Scientists believe that we could sustain life there by producing food under artificial light and growing genetically modified plants Space companies are already designing prototypes of habitation humans will need to survive on Mars.

Here are some of the basic facts that astronomers have learnt about the planet over the years.

• Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System, is an icy desert. It has two moons Phobos and Deimos.
• It is half the size of Earth, and gets its name the Red Planet because iron minerals in its soil oxidise or rust thereby making its surface and atmosphere look red.
• One Martian year is 687 Earth days.
• Mars has seasons and weather patterns. It has polar ice caps, canyons and even dead volcanoes. It has a very thin atmospheric layer.
• Mars, at the farthest point of its orbit, is about 400 million kilometres, from Earth, and 55 million kilometres at the nearest point.

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You may have noticed that weather events such as severe heatwaves and severe floods have often been making headlines. When such events happen, scientists are invariably asked, "Is climate change to blame?" A decade ago, scientists cautioned against making such attribution. They would dismiss the question by saying.

There's no science to tell us whether climate change contributed to this specific event. But today, they have the science, the computer model and the research methodology to connect climate change to the extreme weather events

Investigating links between climate change and extreme weather is known as Attribution Science. Such studies can be tricky- but not impossible.

Attribution Science is a relatively new field, which is thought to have emerged 10 years ago. In 2011, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists published a study concluding that human-caused climate change played a role in five of the six extreme weather events analysed. Such studies, called the "Explaining Extreme Events" report, have been published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society every year since.

Scientists first define an extreme event's magnitude and frequency based on observational data. Then they use computer climate models and compare those models results with observational data. Based on these calculations, scientists quantify the impact of climate change. Attribution Science helps scientists not only to test whether climate change is responsible for a particular extreme weather event, but also to ascertain the magnitude of its impact.

What is climate change?

Climate refers to weather conditions that typically exist in one area over a long period of time. Climate change is the long term, significant change observed in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, which include the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests. Climate change may lead to extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.

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Solar energy, radiation from the Sun capable of producing heat, causing chemical reactions, or generating electricity. The total amount of solar energy incident on Earth is vastly in excess of the world’s current and anticipated energy requirements.

The Sun is an extremely powerful energy source, and sunlight is by far the largest source of energy received by Earth, but its intensity at Earth’s surface is actually quite low. This is essentially because of the enormous radial spreading of radiation from the distant Sun. A relatively minor additional loss is due to Earth’s atmosphere and clouds, which absorb or scatter as much as 54 percent of the incoming sunlight. The sunlight that reaches the ground consists of nearly 50 percent visible light, 45 percent infrared radiation, and smaller amounts of ultraviolet and other forms of electromagnetic radiation.

The potential for solar energy is enormous, since about 200,000 times the world’s total daily electric-generating capacity is received by Earth every day in the form of solar energy. Unfortunately, though solar energy itself is free, the high cost of its collection, conversion, and storage still limits its exploitation in many places. Solar radiation can be converted either into thermal energy (heat) or into electrical energy, though the former is easier to accomplish.

Credit : Britannica

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Hydroelectric energy, also called hydroelectric power or hydroelectricity, is a form of energy that harnesses the power of water in motion—such as water flowing over a waterfall—to generate electricity. People have used this force for millennia. Over two thousand years ago, people in Greece used flowing water to turn the wheel of their mill to ground wheat into flour.

Most hydroelectric power plants have a reservoir of water, a gate or valve to control how much water flows out of the reservoir, and an outlet or place where the water ends up after flowing downward. Water gains potential energy just before it spills over the top of a dam or flows down a hill. The potential energy is converted into kinetic energy as water flows downhill. The water can be used to turn the blades of a turbine to generate electricity, which is distributed to the power plant’s customers.

Hydroelectric energy is the most commonly-used renewable source of electricity. China is the largest producer of hydroelectricity. Other top producers of hydropower around the world include the United States, Brazil, Canada, India, and Russia. Approximately 71 percent of all of the renewable electricity generated on Earth is from hydropower.

The Three Gorges Dam in China, which holds back the Yangtze River, is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, in terms of electricity production. The dam is 2,335 meters (7,660 feet) long and 185 meters (607 feet) tall, and has enough generators to produce 22,500 megawatts of power.

Credit : National Geographic Society

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