Steel was already being used in Europe 2,900 years ago, shows study - Phys.org

Using geochemicalanalyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel. This was backed up by metallographic analyses of an iron chisel from the same period and region that showed the necessary carbon content to be proper steel. Credit: Rafael Ferreiro Mählmann (A), Bastian Asmus (B), Ralph Araque Gonzalez (C-E). University of Freiburg

A study by an international and interdisciplinary team headed by University of Freiburg archaeologist Dr. Ralph Araque Gonzalez from the Faculty of Humanities has proven that steel tools were already in use in Europe around 2,900 years ago.

Using geochemicalanalyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel. This was backed up by metallographic analyses of an iron chisel from the same period and region (Rocha do Vigio, Portugal, ca. 900 BCE) that showed the necessary carbon content to be proper steel. The result was also confirmed experimentally by undertaking trials with chisels made of various materials: Only the chisel made of tempered steel was suitably capable of engraving the stone.

Until recently it was assumed that it had not been possible to produce suitable quality steel in the Early Iron Age and certainly not in the Final Bronze Age, and that it only came to be widespread in Europe under the Roman Empire.

"The chisel from Rocha do Vigio and the context where it was found show that iron metallurgy including the production and tempering of steel were probably indigenous developments of decentralized small communities in Iberia, and not due to the influence of later colonization processes. This also has consequences for the archaeological assessment of iron metallurgy and quartzite sculptures in other regions of the world," explains Araque Gonzalez.

The study, "Stone-working and the earliest steel in Iberia: Scientific analyses and experimental replications of final bronze age stelae and tools,"' has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Iberian pillars of siliceous quartz sandstone could only be worked with tempered steel

The archaeological record of Late Bronze Age Iberia (c. 1300-800 BCE) is fragmentary in many parts of the Iberian Peninsula: Sparse remains of settlement and nearly no detectable burials are complemented by traces of metal hoarding and remains of mining activities. Taking this into account, the western Iberian stelae with their depictions of anthropomorphic figures, animals and selected objects are of unique importance for the investigation of this era.

Until now, studies of the actual rocks from which these stelae were made to gain insights into the use of materials and tools have been the exception. Araque Gonzalez and his colleagues analyzed the geological composition of the stelae in depth. This led them to discover that a significant number of stelae was not as had been assumed made of quartzite, but silicate quartz sandstone.

"Just like quartzite, this is an extremely hard rock that cannot be worked with bronze or stone tools, but only with tempered steel," says Araque Gonzalez.

Chisel discovery and archaeological experiment confirm use of steel

Analysis of an iron chisel found in Rocha do Vigio showed that Iberian stonemasons from the Final Bronze Age had the necessary tools. The researchers discovered that it consisted of heterogeneous yet astonishingly carbon-rich steel. To confirm their findings, the researchers also carried out an experiment involving a professional stonemason, a blacksmith and a bronze caster, and attempted to work the rock that the pillars were made of using chisels of different materials. The stonemason could not work the stone with either the stone or the bronze chisels, or even using an iron chisel with an untempered point.

"The people of the Final Bronze Age in Iberia were capable of tempering steel. Otherwise they would not have been able to work the pillars," concludes Araque Gonzalez as a result of the experiment.

More information: Ralph Araque Gonzalez et al, Stone-working and the earliest steel in Iberia: Scientific analyses and experimental replications of final bronze age stelae and tools, Journal of Archaeological Science (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105742

More information is available here.

Provided by University of Freiburg

Citation: Steel was already being used in Europe 2,900 years ago, shows study (2023, February 28) retrieved 28 February 2023 from https://ift.tt/16NArjp

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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NASA Administrator Selects New Head of Science - NASA

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1. NASA Administrator Selects New Head of Science  NASA
2. NASA names solar physicist as agency's science chief  Reuters
3. Heliophysics director named NASA associate administrator for science  SpaceNews
4. In a first, NASA to name a woman as its science chief: Report  WION
5. NASA To Name 1st Woman As Agency's Science Chief: Report  NDTV
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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SpaceX unveils “V2 Mini” Starlink satellites with quadruple the capacity - Ars Technica

Enlarge / SpaceX's V2 Mini Starlink satellites.

SpaceX

With Starlink speeds slowing due to a growing capacity crunch, SpaceX said a launch happening as soon as today will deploy the first "V2 Mini" satellites that provide four times more per-satellite capacity than earlier versions.

Starlink's second-generation satellites include the V2 Minis and the larger V2. The larger V2s are designed for the SpaceX Starship, which isn't quite ready to launch yet, but the V2 Minis are slimmed-down versions that can be deployed from the Falcon 9 rocket.

"The V2 Minis are smaller than the V2 satellites (hence the name) but don't let the name fool you," SpaceX said in a statement provided to Ars yesterday. "The V2 Minis include more advanced phased array antennas and the use of E-band for backhaul, which will enable Starlink to provide ~4x more capacity per satellite than earlier iterations."

We call them “V2 Mini”. They represent a step forward in Starlink capability pic.twitter.com/EFVpLFcz7n

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 26, 2023

SpaceX didn't specify the amount of data that each V2 Mini satellite can provide, but its first-generation satellites were designed for an aggregate downlink capacity of 17 to 23Gbps per satellite. We asked SpaceX for details on the V2 Mini's per-satellite capacity and whether current user terminals installed at customers' homes can take full advantage of the speed boosts, and will update this article if we get a response.

The Federal Communications Commission recently gave SpaceX approval to launch 7,500 of the 30,000 planned second-generation satellites. A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch tentatively scheduled for today would put 21 V2 Minis into orbit.

"Space weather is a watch item, with the two-minute launch window opening around 6:13 p.m. ET (23:13 UTC)... If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Tuesday, February 28 at 1:49 p.m. ET (18:49 UTC)," SpaceX said.

The larger V2 satellites that can't launch until Starship is ready will be able to send signals directly to cell phones, a capability that'll be used by SpaceX and T-Mobile in a partnership announced in August 2022.

Starlink speeds drop amid price hike and data cap

Many launches will likely be required for the second-generation satellites to have a noticeable impact on broadband performance. Starlink has nearly 3,700 first-generation satellites in orbit, but speeds have slowed as more users sign up. In large portions of the US, people who want Starlink have to sign up for a waiting list.

SpaceX has already imposed pricing changes that may be intended to manage capacity limits. Starlink last week notified residential users in "limited-capacity" areas that their monthly service price will increase from $110 to $120, while users in "excess-capacity" areas will get a price cut and pay only $90 going forward. Starlink also has a new data cap in which customers who go over 1TB in any given month will get slower speeds unless they pay extra for additional high-speed data.

Despite the name, the V2 Minis are bigger and heavier than first-generation Starlink satellites that weighed about 295 kilograms each. "Each Starlink V2 Mini satellite weighs about 1,760 pounds (800 kilograms) at launch, nearly three times heavier than the older Starlink satellites," Spaceflight Now reported. "They are also bigger in size, with a spacecraft body more than 13 feet (4.1 meters) wide, filling more of the Falcon 9 rocket's payload fairing during launch."

Compared to the 21 second-gen satellites set for launch as soon as today, Starlink was able to deploy about 60 satellites per launch with the smaller first-generation ones.

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Rare insect found at Arkansas Walmart sets historic record, points to deeper ecological questions - Phys.org

This Polystoechotes punctata or giant lacewing was collected in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 2012 by Michael Skvarla, director of Penn State's Insect Identification Lab. The specimen is the first of its kind recorded in eastern North America in over fifty years—and the first record of the species ever in the state. Credit: Michael Skvarla / Penn State

A giant insect plucked from the façade of an Arkansas Walmart has set historic records. The Polystoechotes punctata (giant lacewing) is the first of its kind recorded in eastern North America in over 50 years—and the first record of the species ever in the state.

The giant lacewing was formerly widespread across North America, but was mysteriously extirpated from eastern North America by the 1950s. This discovery suggests there may be relic populations of this large, Jurassic-Era insect yet to be discovered, explained Michael Skvarla, director of Penn State's Insect Identification Lab.

Skvarla found the specimen in 2012, but misidentified it and only discovered its true identity after teaching an online course based on his personal insect collection in 2020. He recently co-authored a paper about the discovery in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington.

"I remember it vividly, because I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building," said Skvarla, who was a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas at the time. "I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade."

It wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic that the giant lacewing would find its time to shine. In the fall of 2020, with the world in lockdown, Skvarla was teaching Entomology 432: Insect Biodiversity and Evolution at Penn State. He taught the lab course via Zoom, with students following along remotely on loaner microscopes, and used his own personal insect collection as specimen samples.

As he went to demonstrate the features of a specimen he had previously labeled an "antlion," Skvarla noticed that the characteristics didn't quite match those of the dragonfly-like predatory insect. Instead, he thought it looked more like a lacewing. A giant lacewing has a wingspan of roughly 50 millimeters, which is quite large for an insect, a clear indicator that the specimen was not an antlion, as Skvarla had mistakenly labeled it. The students got to work comparing features—and a discovery was made, live on Zoom.

"We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he's talking about the features and then just kinda stops," said Codey Mathis, a doctoral candidate in entomology at Penn State. "We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing. I still remember the feeling. It was so gratifying to know that the excitement doesn't dim, the wonder isn't lost. Here we were making a true discovery in the middle of an online lab course."

For additional confirmation, Skvarla and his colleagues performed molecular DNA analyses on the specimen. Since confirming its true identity, Skvarla has deposited the insect safely in the collections of the Frost Entomological Museum at Penn State, where scientists and students will have access to it for further research.

"It was one of those experiences you don't expect to have in a prerequisite lab course," Louis Nastasi, a doctoral candidate studying entomology at Penn State. "Here we were, just looking at specimens to identify them and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this incredible new record pops up."

Discovery or recovery?

The fact that a giant lacewing was spotted in the urban area of Fayetteville, Arkansas may reveal a larger story about biodiversity and a changing environment, Skvarla explained. He said that explanations vary for the giant lacewing's disappearance from North America—and it still largely remains a mystery.

Scientists hypothesize the insect's disappearance could be due to the ever-increasing amount of artificial light and pollution of urbanization; suppression of forest fires in eastern North America, if the insects rely on post-fire environments; the introduction of non-native predators such as large ground beetles; and introduction of non-native earthworms, which significantly altered the composition of forest leaf litter and soil.

"Entomology can function as a leading indicator for ecology," Skvarla said. "The fact that this insect was spotted in a region that it hasn't been seen in over half a century tells us something more broadly about the environment."

The researchers analyzed extensive collection records of giant lacewings, including museum holdings and community science submissions, and placed them into a single map to determine their distribution. The records span a huge geographic range, from Alaska to Panama, and include multiple ecoregions in both eastern and western North America. The map revealed the Arkansas specimen was the first spotted in eastern North America in over 50 years.

Fayetteville lies within the Ozark Mountains, which are a suspected biodiversity hotspot, according to Skvarla and his co-author J. Ray Fisher of the Mississippi Entomological Museum at Mississippi State University.

They said that dozens of endemic species, including 68 species of insects, are known from the Ozarks and at least 58 species of plants and animals have highly disjunct populations with representatives in the region. They explain that the area is understudied compared to regions of similar biodiversity, such as the Southern Appalachians.

"This combination makes the region an ideal place for a large, showy insect to hide undetected," they said.

The mystery remains as to how the insect arrived on the exterior of a Walmart. The fact that it was found on the side of a well-lit building at night suggests that it was likely attracted to the lights and may have flown at least a few hundred meters from where it originated, Skvarla explained. "It could have been 100 years since it was even in this area—and it's been years since it's been spotted anywhere near it. The next closest place that they've been found was 1,200 miles away, so very unlikely it would have traveled that far."

The researchers note that they suspect the new specimen represents a rare, surviving eastern population of giant lacewings that evaded detection and extinction.

"Discovery doesn't always hold that same kind of grasp on people that maybe it did 100 years ago," said Nastasi. "But a finding like this really highlights that even in a run-of-the-mill situation, there are still a tremendous number of discoveries to make about insects."

More information: Michael J. Skvarla et al, Rediscovery of Polystoechotes punctata (Fabricius, 1793) (Neuroptera: Ithonidae) in Eastern North America, Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington (2022). DOI: 10.4289/0013-8797.124.2.332

Provided by Pennsylvania State University

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SpaceX Crew Dragon poised for overnight launch to space station – Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg, NASA commander Stephen Bowen, and Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi (left to right) are heading to the International Space Station for a six-month expedition. Credit: SpaceX

In the first of three planned flights Monday, SpaceX counted down to the deep overnight launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a history-making United Arab Emirates astronaut to the International Space Station.

Sultan Alneyadi, a father of six, is the second Emerati to fly in space but the first assigned to a full-duration six-month stay aboard the station. During his expedition, two Saudi fliers also will visit the lab complex for about a week as part of a commercial mission managed by Houston-based Axiom Space.

“I think it’s going to be really interesting,” Alneyadi said after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center last week. “It’s for the sake of science, for the sake of spreading the knowledge about how important it is to fly (in space) and to push the boundaries of exploration, not only in the leading countries.

“Our region is also thirsty to learn more. And I think we will be ambassadors in these missions. Hopefully, we can come back with knowledge and share whatever we learn with everybody.”

Alneyadi, Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen, pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev planned to strap into their Crew Dragon atop pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center shortly after 11 p.m. EST to await liftoff at 1:45 a.m. Monday.

Climbing away to the northeast along a trajectory tilted 51.6 degrees to the equator, the Crew Dragon was expected to reach its preliminary orbit about nine minutes after liftoff, separating from the Falcon 9’s second stage two-and-a-half minutes later.

From that point on, the SpaceX capsule will carry out an automated rendezvous, catching up with the space station about 25 hours after launch. Docking at the upper port of the lab’s forward Harmony module is expected at 2:38 a.m. Tuesday.

SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on Launch Complex 39A atop its Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: SpaceX

Unlike shuttle crews, who spent the time between launch and docking carrying out heat shield inspections and other tightly-scripted activities, Crew Dragon fliers are free to structure their schedules as they see fit, enjoying a relatively quiet day in space before their real work begins at the space station.

They’ll be welcomed aboard by Crew-5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian to launch aboard a Crew Dragon. They arrived at the station last October and plan to return to Earth around March 6 to close out a 151-day mission.

Also welcoming the Crew-6 fliers will be Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio. They launched to the lab last September and originally planned to fly home in March.

But their Soyuz MS-22 ferry ship was crippled December 14 when a presumed micrometeoroid ruptured a coolant line. After an analysis, Russian engineers concluded the spacecraft could not safely be used again given the possibility sensitive systems could overheat.

Instead, a replacement Soyuz — MS-23 — was launched last Thursday, carrying equipment and supplies instead of a crew. The spacecraft successfully docked with the station Saturday night, providing Prokopyev and his crewmates with a safe ride home.

But to get the crew rotation schedule back on track, the trio will have to spend an additional six months in space, coming home this fall after a full year in orbit. They’ll share the station with Crew 6 for most of that time.

Alneyadi will be the second in a small cadre of UAE astronauts to fly in space. A countryman, Hazzaa Al Mansoori, visited the space station as part of an earlier short-term Soyuz visit, but Alneyadi is the first assigned to a six-month mission as a full-scale station crew member.

“My colleague, Hazzaa Al Mansoori, and two additional astronauts are training (at the) Johnson Space Center for future missions,” Alneyadi said. “Being an astronaut myself for Crew-6, it’s a great privilege and great responsibility.”

Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi during training at Launch Complex 39A last year. Credit: SpaceX

Perhaps not widely known in the United States, the UAE “is running a quite interesting number of activities,” he said in a pre-launch interview with CBS News. “We have satellites, we have a probe that is orbiting Mars, we have a lander on its way to the lunar surface.”

During his half-year in space, Alneyadi said he and his crewmates will “be the hands, the eyes, the ears of the scientists who are working for years for a specific experiment. Some of the experiments are ongoing, some of them are ending soon and some of them are just starting.”

He highlighted an experiment to study heart cells in microgravity and being able to watch heart tissue “beating in space.”

“This is something like a cutting edge technology that one day, when we start 3D printing organs, this is really important to see how the structure is built in microgravity. So this can give us a really good insight how these tissues are built.”

But it won’t be all work and no play.

An expert in the Japanese martial art of jiu-jitsu, “I have a kimono that I’m going to wear on board and probably do some moves,” he said. He also plans to share one of his favorite foods with his crewmates.

“I love dates, I’m going to take dates. And hopefully I’m going to share this with everybody, especially in Ramadan. This is a request from the commander, and I cannot say no to my commander!”

The Crew-6 launch is the first of three planned Falcon 9 flights Monday with two afternoon launches from the East and West Coasts to put two batches of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The company plans up to 100 or so launches in 2023, an unprecedented flight rate.

To sustain that pace, “we have to be able to have multiple operations in flow at the same time,” said Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight at SpaceX. “We’re excited to see see how this plays out and see if we are able to launch that many in a row in that quick of a time period.

“But above all, the priority is the crew flight, crew safety,” he said. “That will always take precedence over the other flights.”

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How an undercover cop foiled plot to assassinate ex-NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly - New York Post

Former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly is speaking out publicly for the first time about a Rikers Island inmate’s plot to behead him and bomb police headquarters some 16 years ago.

But Kelly wasn’t scared, the longest-serving commissioner in NYPD history told The Post in an interview ahead of a new A&E docu-series detailing how authorities foiled the 2007 scheme.

“We had this guy identified, and he was in prison,” Kelly, 81, said, recalling David Brown Jr.’s plan to hire a hitman to kill and dismember him.

“I felt relatively secure,” Kelly, who led the department between 2002 and 2013, said cooly. “It really didn’t jolt me that much. You probably don’t want to hear that, but that’s pretty much what it was.”

The chilling plot was ultimately stopped thanks to the work of an undercover officer — with Kelly lauding him and other such investigators as unsung heroes.

David Brown Jr. also wanted to bomb One Police Plaza, which he called the “information capital” of the NYPD.

Taidgh Barron/NY Post

Brown, a 47-year-old convicted Brooklyn felon, had told undercover NYPD Det. Chuck Byam that he was enraged by the November 2006 police killing of Sean Bell, who was shot the morning of his wedding while unarmed.

He faulted Kelly over the case — and wanted the top cop beheaded as punishment and NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza bombed, he told Byam. And he was willing to pay $165,000 to get the job done.

“Well, what I need to do is have the police commissioner killed – I want him murdered,” Brown told Byam on a clip of the first episode of “Undercover: Caught on Tape” set to air Thursday.

“I just can’t take it no longer,” Brown continued in the recording, according to the clip shared with The Post.

“Every time something happens, how the police commissioner backs the police up. That kind of like got me frustrated to the point where I want him murdered.”

Byam, now a retired 25-year NYPD veteran who was interviewed for the series, said: “This guy has got some balls.”

Kelly said he was glad Byam, the undercover cop, was there to foil the plot against him.

A&E

“Not that he wants to kill another drug dealer, or a rival. He wants to kill the police commissioner of New York City,” Byam said. “That’s big.”

Byam, who is black, added that even though he understood the frustration about black men being killed by the police, it didn’t justify another murder.

“I don’t see how you’re comfortable with yourself wanting to take somebody’s life,” he says in the episode.

Brown’s threats were different than the standard sinister-but-anonymous phonecall, Kelly told The Post.

“The difference here was we knew who this individual was … We knew he was violent and we knew that he had money,” Kelly said. “He had a house that was worth at least $400,000, so it was different than the other threats. That’s when we decided to use the undercover.”

Byam had a pair of recorders in his pockets for the in-person meeting at Rikers Island on Feb. 23, 2007, where the two would arrange the hit.

Brown told Byam he needed Kelly killed immediately: “I want his head chopped off,” he was heard saying, according to the documentary.

“I need the people to feel my wrath and my rage,” Brown continued. “Every second of every day he lives, burns my soul. I take it personally every time he overlooks certain things that take place.”

David Brown Jr. told an undercover cop that he wanted Kelly’s head chopped off.

Chad Rachman/New York Post

Then, Brown asked if Byam could get explosives to take out NYPD HQ.

“I want that blown up,” he told Byam, adding that it was the “information capital of the world for the whole police department.”

“I want to feel like a terrorist,” Brown said. “I want them to feel like I am a mother f—ing terrorist, ya know?”

Despite the criminal’s words, Byam concluded that the post-9/11 plot had nothing to do with actual terrorists overseas. It was just one man with a serious vendetta.

The two reached an agreement on the payment, shook hands, then left, the documentary said.

That was all authorities needed. Brown was arrested and charged with two counts of solicitation, ultimately receiving an additional six years behind bars.

“I made a difference in ordinary, everyday New Yorkers’ – I made a difference in their lives,” Byam said. “Although they’ll never know I was the one responsible for it, I still feel good about the difference I’ve made in New York City.”

Kelly was reportedly never in direct danger during the plot.

A&E

People did notice, though. Then-President Barack Obama sent the detective a congratulatory letter, and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer sent him a flag that had flown over the nation’s Capitol in his honor, Byam told The Post.

“I felt very honored,” he said in an interview last week. “The fact that I was still alive when I got the flag — that was definitely a honor for me, a touching moment.”

Kelly was reportedly never in any direct danger. Brown, who had been convicted of 30 crimes, was mentally ill and wheelchair bound.

Still, Kelly told The Post that he was “certainly glad [Byam] was there.”

“He did a great job,” Kelly said. “You know, you don’t think about those things in the normal course of business … but when you are confronted with something with all of those details, the specificity of the threat, then it gives you cause for concern.”

He also lauded undercover cops as unsung heroes who work in the darkness with few rewards.

“[Byam] is sort of emblematic of the work that the undercover police officers do every day,” Kelly said.

“They are protecting all of us by really putting their lives on the line.”

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'Microdiamonds' discovered at French winery point to ancient meteor crater below the vines - Livescience.com

A circular depression that holds a vineyard in a French winery is actually an old impact crater, new research finds. 

The crater sits in the appropriately named Domaine du Météore winery near Cabrerolles in southern France. The feature was first tentatively identified as a meteor crater in 1950. But a study in 1964 argued against the identification because the crater had no elevated rim and the scientists who authored the study could find no evidence of the kinds of magnetic field anomalies that are often found at impact sites. 

Now, a new examination of the site reveals that there is indeed a magnetic anomaly within the crater. What's more, fragments of rock in and around the depression show signs of being subjected to a hard shock: There are pockets of melted and resolidified rock, as well as microdiamonds that form under great pressure, researchers will report at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (opens in new tab) in The Woodlands, Texas, in mid-March.

Related: What's the difference between asteroids, comets and meteors?

The Domaine du Météore crater is relatively small for an impact crater, measuring just 656 feet (200 meters) across. The crater is about 98 feet (30 m) deep, with sides covered in scrubby trees and a floor lined with neat Syrah grapevines. Frank Brenker (opens in new tab), a geologist at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany, and colleagues conducted the first comprehensive study of the crater over two separate visits, first taking rock samples for microanalysis and then returning to analyze the crater's magnetic field and other properties. 

The researchers found several signs of an impact, including dark-colored veins that might have been caused by a shock, as well as rock known as impact breccia, which is deformed and shows signs of having melted and resolidified into a kind of cement. The researchers also screened the soil for tiny impact spherules, and found several tiny nickel-and-iron-rich nodules that are similar to ones found in other impact craters. 

"Such microspheres form either through abrasion of the meteorite in the atmosphere or only upon impact, when a large part of the iron meteorite melts and then reacts with the oxygen in the air," Brenker said in a statement (opens in new tab). These spherules contained microscopic flecks of diamond, which form only under high pressure.

Finally, the researchers conducted a magnetic survey of the crater and found that the magnetic field decreases closer to the center of the crater. This is also typical of impact craters, because the impact can destroy magnetic rocks or disrupt their magnetism by realigning the atoms responsible for creating the magnetic field in the first place, the researchers said. 

The researchers also conducted geoelectric analysis of the crater, because the deformation of rocks during an impact can affect the way those rocks conduct electricity. Those data are still being analyzed. 

The new research did not give an estimate of the crater's age. However, the winery website (opens in new tab) estimates that the crater impact occurred around 10,000 years ago. 

Impact craters are rare on Earth because they're typically erased by erosion and the ever-shifting movements of tectonic plates. The Earth Impact Database (opens in new tab) lists only 190 confirmed craters across the globe. Small craters like the one at the Domaine du Météore winery are particularly likely to be wiped away; according to the new research's abstract, there are only three known craters with a diameter of less than 984 feet (300 m). 

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Euclid spacecraft prepares to probe universe's dark mysteries - Phys.org

The European Space Agency's Euclid spacecraft, which launches in July on a mission to probe dark matter and dark energy.

For now, Europe's Euclid spacecraft sits quietly in a sterilized room in the south of France, its golden trim gleaming under the fluorescent light.

But in a few months the space telescope will blast off on history's first mission to search for two of the universe's greatest mysteries: dark matter and dark energy.

Though together they make up 95 percent of the universe, almost nothing is known about either—a glaring hole in scientific understanding that Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca dubbed a "cosmic embarrassment".

Aiming to shed light on these dark secrets, the European Space Agency's mission will chart a 3D map of the universe encompassing two billion galaxies across more than a third of the sky.

The third dimension of this map will be time—because Euclid's gaze will stretch out to 10 billion light years away, it will offer new insight into how the 13.8-billion-year-old universe evolved.

The two-ton spacecraft, which is 4.7 meters (15 feet) tall and 3.5 meters (11 feet) wide, was unveiled to the media for the first time this week in a clean room of the Thales Alenia Space company in the southeastern French city of Cannes.

Only a few final tests remain before it heads to Cape Canaveral in the United States for a launch scheduled between July 1 and 30 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Euclid was originally planned to get a ride into space on a Russian Soyuz rocket, but last year Moscow withdrew its launchers in response to European sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, delaying the launch.

Euclid will hover at the second Lagrangian Point, where it can keep its solar panel-covered back permanently to the Sun.

Taking a wider view

Euclid will join fellow space telescope James Webb at a stable hovering spot around 1.5 million kilometers from Earth called the second Lagrangian Point, where it can keep its solar panel-covered back permanently to the Sun.

The first images are expected to roll in quickly once scientific operations start in October, but for larger discoveries it will likely take scientists months or years to sift through the "unprecedented amount of data", Racca said.

The 1.4-billion-euro ($1.5 billion) European mission is planned to last until 2029, though "if nothing strange happens" it could be extended a couple more years, Racca told a press conference.

How will Euclid, which is named after the ancient Greek founder of the field of geometry, observe something that cannot be seen? By searching for its absence.

The light coming from billions of years in the past is slightly distorted by the mass of visible and dark matter along the way, a phenomenon known as weak gravitational lensing.

"By subtracting the visible matter, we can calculate the presence of the dark matter which is in between," Racca said.

To do this, Euclid has two main instruments, a 1.2-meter (four-foot) diameter telescope and the Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP), which can split infrared wavelengths not visible to the eye.

The spacecraft is unveiled to media in a clean room of the Thales Alenia Space company in the French city of Cannes.

'Unique tool'

Partly what sets Euclid apart from other space telescopes is its field of view, which takes in an area equivalent to "two full moons", said David Elbaz, an astrophysicist at the French Atomic Energy Commission.

This wide view will enable Euclid to locate massive structures like black holes that the Webb telescope cannot hope to find because its "field of view is too small", Euclid's project scientist Rene Laureijs told AFP.

But Euclid's universe-spanning survey will be able to point Webb in the right direction for closer inspection, said Laureijs, who has been working on the project since the proposal stage in 2007.

The mission comes amid increasing signs that there are some serious inconsistencies in our understanding of how the universe works.

Two very precise measurements give two significantly different answers for the rate at which the universe is expanding—a problem called the Hubble tension in which dark energy is thought to play a major role.

And just this week, the Webb telescope spotted six galaxies in the early universe that seemingly defy cosmological theory because they are far too massive to have formed so quickly after the Big Bang.

Euclid will be a "unique tool" in the quest to find answers to such questions, Elbaz said.

© 2023 AFP

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What Sounds Did Dinosaurs Make? - The New York Times

A new study of a fossilized ankylosaur suggests it could have uttered birdlike calls.

In the next generation of dinosaur-based blockbuster films, some of the star creatures could perhaps sound more like a bird and a little less like a roaring lion.

At least that’s a possibility raised from new research published this month, although very little is really understood about dinosaur vocals.

But a research team has drawn clues about sounds the extinct creatures could have made from what might be the first known fossilized larynx of a dinosaur. It comes from an ankylosaur, a group of armored plant-eaters that were not close relatives of birds. This squat, spiky dinosaur (Pinacosaurus grangeri) was unearthed in 2005 in Mongolia.

Junki Yoshida, a paleontologist at the Fukushima Museum in Japan, said the find was surprising because the body parts involved in vocalization, including the larynx, which is often made of cartilage but can be bony in some animals, were not considered to be good candidates for preservation as fossils. (The larynx in some animals is located near the upper part of the windpipe and contains the vocal cords.)

To try to glean what sounds a dinosaur might have uttered, Dr. Yoshida’s team also looked to the evolutionary relatives of those Cretaceous creatures, including birds and the dinosaurs’ closest cousins — crocodiles.

“They kind of bracket the range of sounds we might expect,” said Victoria Arbour, a paleontologist at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, Canada, who was not involved in the new study.

Crocodiles’ vocal repertoire includes deep rumbles and hisses. “Assuming that dinosaurs make some crocodile-like sounds is pretty safe,” she said. “That’s the base anatomy they’d be working with. And then birds evolved these additional ways of producing sounds where they can modify the sounds coming out of their throat in a more nuanced way.”

Birds and reptiles have very different ways of producing sounds using the organs that surround their windpipes and lungs. In extinct and living crocodile relatives, the larynx produces sound. Birds possess a different organ, called the syrinx, that sits close to their lungs to produce sound. They also have another organ, located near their mouths, for changing up those sounds, allowing some birds to create elaborate songs.

A ventral view of the larynx fossil.Michael D'Emic/American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Yoshida and his colleagues sized up two parts of the larynx, which would have supported muscles involved in opening the airway and changing its shape. In the ankylosaur, the parts were both bones. The team compared their proportions to the larynxes from dozens of birds and reptiles, including crocodiles, geckos and turtles.

One part that forms the base of the ankylosaur’s larynx was very large compared to those of other animals, suggesting that this dinosaur could open its airway wide to make loud calls that could be heard far away, Dr. Yoshida said. The other larynx part, a relatively long pair of bones, could have permitted the windpipe to change shape to modify sounds, he added. That might have allowed ankylosaurs to vocalize in a way similar to birds, the researchers reported recently in the journal Communications Biology.

People might assume that sounding birdlike would mean these dinosaurs were tweeting like meadowlarks, Dr. Arbour said. That’s probably not true, but “they might have had a broader range of sounds than we might give ankylosaurs credit for otherwise,” she said.

“There’s still possibilities that they made chirping and cooing” noises, Dr. Yoshida said. But it is too soon to understand what specific sounds dinosaurs might have made, he cautioned. Even a single bird species makes a wide range of noises, and there are other organs at play, from the mouth and nose to possibly a syrinx, he said.

A reconstruction of Pinacosaurus. “Ankylosaurs are weird,” Dr. Clarke said. “That is the main message.”Tatsuya Shinmura

Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who was not part of the study, found the analysis intriguing. But she said that the way these larynx parts and other nearby bones were arranged in the ankylosaur did not resemble those in birds.

“Only in pterosaurs do we see something like the birdlike condition,” she said.

It’s not clear how the structures that the team analyzed would allow an ankylosaur to vary sounds, Dr. Clarke said. Birds don’t use the larynx for this purpose. They have an organ she called a hyolaryngeal basket that moves up or down to modify their calls. And the larynx shows up in all tetrapods — a group that includes animals like birds, reptiles and mammals that descended from four-limbed creatures. The anatomy described in the research varies across animals whether they can vocalize or not. “We don’t know what any of this variation means,” she said.

The larynx parts under study might have had more to do with keeping food out of the airway because they helped to open and close it, she said. And the layout of related structures in this ankylosaur also looked completely different than those of many other dinosaurs, ones that Dr. Clarke has studied and that show up in the literature.

Could other dinosaurs have sounded like birds? Maybe. Dr. Clarke and her colleagues found a fossilized syrinx from around 67 million years ago in an ancient bird. Since that was before dinosaurs went extinct, that raises the possibility that some dinosaurs may have had them. But so far, no one has found a fossilized syrinx in a non-avian dinosaur.

These larynx parts in the new study probably had to do with the unique attributes of this ankylosaur rather than something that could be generalized across dinosaurs, she said. “There are still a lot of questions about the evolution of dinosaur vocalization.”

“Ankylosaurs are weird,” Dr. Clarke said. “That is the main message.”

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First look at Ryugu asteroid sample reveals it is organic-rich - Phys.org

This conceptual image illustrates the types of organic molecules found in the sample of asteroid Ryugu collected by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Organics are the building blocks of all known forms of terrestrial life and consist of a wide variety of compounds made of carbon combined with hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and other atoms. However, organic molecules can also be created by non-living processes, such as chemical reactions in asteroids. Credit: NASA/JAXA/Dan Gallagher

Asteroid Ryugu has a rich complement of organic molecules, according to a NASA and international team's initial analysis of a sample from the asteroid's surface delivered to Earth by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The discovery adds support to the idea that organic material from space contributed to the inventory of chemical components necessary for life.

Organic molecules are the building blocks of all known forms of terrestrial life and consist of a wide variety of compounds made of carbon combined with hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and other atoms. However, organic molecules can also be made by chemical reactions that don't involve life, supporting the hypothesis that chemical reactions in asteroids can make some of life's ingredients.

The science of prebiotic chemistry attempts to discover the compounds and reactions that could have given rise to life, and among the prebiotic organics found in the sample were several kinds of amino acids. Certain amino acids are widely used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. Proteins are essential to life as they are used to make enzymes which speed up or regulate chemical reactions and to make structures from microscopic to large such as hair and muscles. The sample from Ryugu also contained many types of organics that form in the presence of liquid water, including aliphatic amines, carboxylic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds.

"The presence of prebiotic molecules on the asteroid surface despite its harsh environment caused by solar heating and ultraviolet irradiation, as well as cosmic-ray irradiation under high-vacuum conditions, suggests that the uppermost surface grains of Ryugu have the potential to protect organic molecules," said Hiroshi Naraoka of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. "These molecules can be transported throughout the solar system, potentially dispersing as interplanetary dust particles after being ejected from the uppermost layer of the asteroid by impacts or other causes."

Naraoka is lead author of a paper about this research published online February 23 in Science.

"So far, the amino acid results from Ryugu are mostly consistent with what has been seen in certain types of carbon-rich (carbonaceous) meteorites that have been exposed to the most water in space," said Jason Dworkin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a co-author of the paper.

"However, sugars and nucleobases (components of DNA and RNA) which have been discovered in some carbon-rich meteorites, have not yet been identified in samples returned from Ryugu," said Daniel Glavin of NASA Goddard, a co-author of the paper. "It is possible these compounds are present in asteroid Ryugu but are below our analytical detection limits given the relatively small sample mass available for study."

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected the samples Feb. 22, 2019, and delivered them to Earth Dec. 6, 2020. They were extracted in Japan in July 2021 and analyzed at Goddard in autumn 2021. A very small amount of sample (30 milligrams or about 0.001 ounce) was allocated for the international soluble organic analysis team. The sample was extracted (like tea) in many different solvents in Japan and analyzed in labs in Japan, Goddard, and Europe using a vast range of machines like those in a forensics lab.

This work is the first organic analysis of the Ryugu sample, and the samples will be studied for years. "We will do a direct comparison of the samples from Ryugu and the sample from asteroid Bennu when NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returns it to Earth in 2023," said Dworkin. "OSIRIS-REx is expected to return much more sample mass from Bennu and will provide another important opportunity to look for trace organic building blocks of life in a carbon-rich asteroid."

More information: Hiroshi Naraoka, Soluble organic molecules in samples of the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.abn9033. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn9033

Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Russia launches replacement spacecraft for astronauts stranded by coolant leak - CNN

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CNN  — 

Russia launched a Soyuz spacecraft that will replace a capsule that sprang a coolant leak in December, leaving two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut without a ride home.

Liftoff of the capsule, called the Soyuz MS-23, took place out of Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan on Thursday at 7:24 p.m. ET, which is 5:24 a.m. Friday local time.

The uncrewed spacecraft will spend about two days in orbit, maneuvering toward the International Space Station It’s expected to dock with the Poisk module — which is on the space station’s Russian-run portion — just after 8 p.m. ET Saturday.

The Soyuz MS-23 will be the return vehicle for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, all of whom traveled to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 capsule in September.

Rather than flying with crew members aboard, the Soyuz MS-23 launched on Thursday with only a “Zero-G indicator,” which can be any object that is left in the cabin and is designed to float freely when the capsule enters microgravity. For this mission, the indicator is a teddy bear tethered by a string inside the cabin.

A teddy bear is strapped to the Soyuz MS-23 before it launches on Thursday, February 23, 2023.

NASA-TV

What caused the coolant leak

About two months into the three men’s journey, the MS-22 experienced a coolant leak, leaving the cabin at temperatures deemed unsafe for the crewmates to use for their return journey. The Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA quickly worked to establish plans to send a replacement vehicle. Roscosmos officials said they had determined that the leak resulted from a small hole caused by an impact with a micrometeoroid.

The Soyuz MS-22 (foreground), here in October docked to a module of the International Space Station, experienced a coolant leak.

NASA

Plans to launch the rescue vehicle, however, were drawn into question when a Russian cargo ship, called Progress, experienced a similar coolant leak after docking with the space station on February 11. Three days later, Roscosmos had said in a post on the social media site Telegram, that it would delay the Soyuz MS-23 launch until at least March while the agency investigated the cause of the Progress vehicle’s coolant leak.

On Tuesday, however, Roscosmos said in an updated Telegram post that it had determined the cause of the Progress spacecraft leak was “external influences.”

“The Russians are continuing to take a very close look at both the Soyuz and the Progress coolant leaks,” Dana Weigel, the space station’s deputy manager for NASA, said during a Wednesday briefing.

“They formed a state commission that is assessing the anomalies,” she added, noting that the team is analyzing potential causes from the time the capsules launched through their journey in orbit.

Crew change

Originally, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara were expected to launch to the space station on March 16 aboard MS-23.

Instead, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s time will be extended on the space station until they can return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-23 later this year. That return could happen in September, according to a report from Russia state-run media outlet TASS.

If that timeline holds, the three crewmates will have extended their expected six-month stay in space to about one year.

When asked about the extended stay, Joel Montalbano, the space station’s program manager for NASA, said the crew remains in good health and there is no reason to expedite their journey home.

The crew is “willing to help wherever we ask,” Montalbano said during a January 11 news conference. “They’re excited to be in space, excited to work and excited to do the research that we do on orbit. So they are ready to go with whatever decision that we give them.”

He added, “I may have to fly some more ice cream to reward them.”

The launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft comes just days before NASA and SpaceX will launch their Crew-6 mission. Expected to lift off early Monday morning, Crew-6 will carry NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg as well as Sultan Alneyadi, an astronaut with the United Arab Emirates, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

Shortly after those four arrive at the space station, NASA’s Crew-5 astronauts will return home from their five-month stay there aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. NASA officials said this week that the coolant leaks experienced on the Soyuz and Progress vehicles would not have any impact on the SpaceX missions and that no similar issues were discovered on Crew Dragon vehicles.

CNN’s Ashley Strickland contributed to this report.

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