NASA

Cosmic dust reveals new insights on the formation of solar system

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 17:10:29 +0000

Cosmic dust reveals new insights on the formation of solar system

noreen.rasbach Mon, 04/29/2019 - 13:10

Cutline

Researchers found a grain of stardust (inset image) that survived the formation of our solar system. The carbon-rich graphite grain (red) revealed an embedded speck (blue) of oxygen-rich material (illustration by Heather Roper/University of Arizona)

Liz Do

Topic

Breaking Research

Earth Sciences

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

NASA

Research & Innovation

Space

The study of a tiny grain of stardust – older than our solar system – is shining new light on how planetary systems are formed.

The microbe-sized extraterrestrial particle, which originated from a nova explosion more than 4.5 billion years ago, was discovered inside a meteorite collected in Antarctica by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Alongside planetary scientists at the University of Arizona, the grain was studied last year at the atomic level by Associate Professor Jane Howe of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering while she was a senior scientist at Hitachi High Technologies.

“This grain is presolar,” says Howe. “It originated before the formation of the sun. It’s just amazing to analyze such an anomaly.”

Using advanced ion and electron microscopes, Howe and the researchers observed the arrangement of carbon atoms and its variants, known as carbon isotope anomalies, and discovered the presolar graphite grain contained oxygen-rich silicates – something they did not expect to see.

The researchers’ observation gives new insights into the conditions of a dying star. It also contradicts the scientific hypothesis that the two types of stardust material, oxygen- and carbon-rich – which are presolar building blocks in the formation of a solar system – could not form in the same nova outburst, under the same conditions.

The international collaboration, which includes Howe, planetary scientists, astronomers and material scientists at the University of Arizona, Washington University in St. Louis, Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain, and Hitachi High Technologies in the U.S. and Japan, published their findings today in Nature Astronomy.

“Sometimes research is about satisfying your curiosity. One of the greatest curiosities is how the universe was formed and how life started,” says Howe. “And this weirdo particle showed us something we didn’t know before.”

Dr. Pierre Haenecour (left) of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and U of T Associate Professor Jane Howe, analyze images of stardust particles with Hitachi’s SU9000 low-voltage STEM/SEM electron microscope (photo courtesy of Maria Schuchardt, University of Arizona)

Howe, who joined U of T Engineering in January, is currently using her electron microscopy expertise to study materials to advance renewable energy, and also plans to expand her work to include meteoritic materials science research.

“I thought this research project was really exciting, and I’m a curious person by nature. At the time, it was just part of my job assignment, but now it’s starting to become part of my research portfolio,” says Howe.

She hopes to further her collaboration with researchers at the University of Arizona. In addition, she recently began a collaboration with Kim Tait, an associate professor in the department of Earth sciences who is also the senior curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum, to study its collection of meteorites.

And, in September 2023 when the University of Arizona-led NASA OSIRIS-Rex mission returns to Earth after taking samples of carbon-rich asteroid, Bennu, Howe will be among the team of Canadian researchers to analyze its samples.

“This kind of research, it’s part of a much larger debate of how life started on Earth. We all care about who we are and where we came from,” says Howe.

“I’m so excited to be part of advancing our knowledge in this.”

Twins in space: U of T expert on how space travel affects gene expression

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 15:37:04 +0000

Twins in space: U of T expert on how space travel affects gene expression

noreen.rasbach Thu, 01/10/2019 - 10:37

Cutline

Astronaut Scott Kelly during a spacewalk on Dec. 21, 2015: Astronauts on space missions experience various physiological effects (photo by NASA via Getty Images)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Space

Researchers have had a rare opportunity to see how conditions on the International Space Station translate to changes in gene expression by comparing identical twin astronauts. One of the twins spent close to a year in space, while the other remained on Earth.

The environment of the space station induced changes in gene expression through a process called epigenetics.

NASA scientists already know that astronauts will be affected differently by the physical stresses they experience. Studies of astronauts’ genetic backgrounds might explain why some are more susceptible to health problems when they come back to Earth. These findings could translate to personalized preventive measures for the vulnerable astronauts.

Surprisingly, it seems that these discoveries could also lead to therapy development for common syndromes affecting us on Earth.

NASA has been studying the consequences of space travel on the human body since the dawn of the space age. At a news conference held approximately a week after arriving at the International Space Station (ISS), Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques said he felt a “little congested” and “had a big red puffy face … like the feeling you get hanging from the monkey bars.” The basis for this uncomfortable feeling relates to fluid redistribution from the lower to the upper body.

NASA Glenn’s Advanced Exercise Countermeasures Project studies how microgravity affects astronaut health (photo by NASA)

Health after long space missions

The health effects that result from long missions in space are not well understood. Overall, astronauts remain in excellent mental and physical health relative to the general population, even after their return from long-term missions. And yet, the health consequences of such missions have been recognized, including cardiovascular deconditioning and vision problems, the causes for which are being investigated.

NASA scientists are exploring how gene expression – the way DNA is converted to tissues – changes in response to the environment inside the ISS. The field of epigenetics describes mechanisms through which environmental factors, like microgravity, relatively high carbon dioxide levels and possible surges in radiation alter the way DNA is read.

Researchers also want to know how each astronaut’s unique DNA will determine their response to the space station environment. Right now, of the 37 studies under way in the space station, three focus specifically on genetic research.

Two of a kind

Preliminary results of the exceptional study of identical twin astronauts support the idea that space travel can affect gene expression in different organs. From 2015 to 2016, astronaut Scott Kelly was aboard the ISS for a consecutive 340 days. His twin brother Mark stayed on Earth. Scott’s basic genetic code was not altered, but the environment of the space station affected the way in which this code was converted into tissue.

According to one of the lead scientists in the twin study, Christopher Mason, these changes occurred in important biological pathways relevant to bone formation and the immune system. The gene expression changes were categorized with respect to possible risk, “as low, medium or high.”

Low-risk changes to gene expression (approximately 93 per cent of all the changes) reset to normal when Scott returned to Earth. Possible medium- to high-risk changes didn’t reverse after six months and “are changes that we’ll want to keep an eye on,” according to Mason. For example, there are expression changes that lead to the immune system being on “high alert,” says Mason.

Although the study of identical twins provides the best evaluation of space effects on gene expression, there are not too many twin astronauts around.

Validation of the findings in the Kelly twins will, by necessity, involve studies in other astronauts. Right now, these validation studies are happening on the International Space Station as liquid biopsies (cell-free DNA and RNA samples from blood) are collected for analysis. But the experiments on the twins really provided a “springboard for all of these subsequent studies,” says Mason.

Vision changes after missions

Previous studies of eye health in a group of astronauts suggest that not all astronauts will respond the same way to life on the space station. Astronaut ophthalmic syndrome is a condition that affects some astronauts. These ocular changes are classified by NASA “as a significant risk for human space travellers,” and include changes to the lens and shape of the eye.

Pre-flight images of normal optic disc. Post-flight right and left optic disc showing visual changes from long-duration space flight: grade 1 (superior and nasal) edema at the right optic disc (photos by NASA)

In some cases, astronauts with excellent vision before space flight “come back needing to wear glasses,” says Scott Smith, the lead nutritional biochemist at NASA.

“We saw chemical differences in blood samples (from astronauts) before flight, so we started to look at genetics.”

Seventy-two astronauts provided blood samples for this study. On analysis, the research findings suggest that each astronaut’s genetic background plays a role in determining their eyes’ vulnerability, or epigenetic response, to detrimental triggers in the space station.

Space eyes and Earth wombs

This research means that certain astronauts could be warned of their personal risk of developing vision problems during long space missions. Better yet, personalized preventive measures or personalized medicine could be discovered and implemented for those with the greatest risk of disease.

“Virtually all the work that NASA does has implications for the general population,” says Smith.

Ophthalmic Syndrome in astronauts is related to another, much more common health problem here on Earth. It turns out that the same genetic variants and changes in serum factors that are associated with ocular problems in astronauts are also connected to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a form of infertility in women.

PCOS affects up to 10 per cent of women. A genetic component for this syndrome was previously suspected.

Genetic and epigenetic studies in astronauts promise to provide astronauts with personalized medical interventions while in space. And they could also provide those of us on Earth with potential therapies.

Christine Bear is a professor in the ��Ƶ's Faculty of Medicine.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

To find life beyond Earth, 'take off the blinkers,' says U of T’s Barbara Sherwood Lollar

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 05:00:00 +0000

To find life beyond Earth, 'take off the blinkers,' says U of T’s Barbara Sherwood Lollar

noreen.rasbach Thu, 12/20/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

“Sometimes we define what we go looking for by what we already know and, oddly enough, we can actually miss things entirely,” says U of T's Barbara Sherwood Lollar (photo by Diana Tysko)

Paul Fraumeni

Topic

Global Lens

Earth Sciences

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

NASA

Research & Innovation

Is there life beyond Earth?

Recent discoveries point to tantalizing possibilities.

But to understand the possibilities, we have to do one important thing: Stop thinking that life as we know it – that which depends on oxygen – is the only kind of life.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this planet of ours, it’s that it’s very easy to fall into paradigms and assume that what we know is in fact the limit,” says the ��Ƶ's Barbara Sherwood Lollar. “Sometimes we define what we go looking for by what we already know and, oddly enough, we can actually miss things entirely.”

Sherwood Lollar is a University Professor of geology and Canada Research Chair in Isotopes of the Earth and Environment. She was also the chair of the committee that recently published An Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe. It is a year-in-the-making report, commissioned by NASA, to recommend an approach to finding life beyond Earth in a planned, strategic and open-minded manner.

“Our work was to survey the landscape, identify discoveries and recommend areas of new direction,” says Sherwood Lollar. The report is part of a “grassroots process” that leads into the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s decadal surveys, where science communities map out what should be focused on over the next decade.

The committee’s overarching approach is to use the fascinating discipline of astrobiology – the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and nature of life in the universe.

“With a definition like that,” says Sherwood Lollar, “astrobiology is immensely interdisciplinary. To search for life beyond Earth, we need to try to understand the life and death of planets and their star systems, such as the influence of the sun on our solar system. And to do that, you need heliophysics, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, microbiology and geology, as well as advanced engineering and technology. And we will need to be able to interpret huge amounts of data, which is where machine learning and artificial intelligence will be essential.”

With all of these possibilities still to explore, Sherwood Lollar and the committee have recommended that the search for life take a variety of forms of life into consideration.

“We need to go broad in thinking about the search for life in the universe. There might be oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere, but that assumes life will be like life on Earth, resulting from photosynthesis. But life can survive through other metabolic strategies.”

She points out that life on Earth has been dependent on oxygen only for the past 2.5 billion of the planet’s 4.5 billion years. Before that, “we had lots of life, but no free oxygen in the atmosphere. And that’s important to realize – planets evolve. At one point, Mars was probably more habitable than Earth. We need to look at that evolution with other planets.”

So the goal in going broad in the search is to “keep the blinkers off and consider the huge variety of lines of evidence that might be important to really nail down the question.”

Another important direction for future research is to explore what is going on beneath the surface of planets. Part of the excitement around the discovery of the ocean deep under the surface of Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter, is that life underground has been discovered on Earth, too.

“One of the reasons I wanted to be a scientist was the discovery on the ocean floors in the 1970s that life down there was not driven by the sun’s energy,” says Sherwood Lollar. “It was not photosynthetic life, but life dependent on chemicals.

"Hydrothermal vents mixed with ocean waters to produce chemical energy and it was discovered that microbes in those systems can live in the deep parts of this planet off of that chemical energy. And it could then sustain higher order organisms like tubeworms. And it’s since been found that life that lives on chemicals is not just on the ocean floors, but also the continental subsurface.”

And if these forms of life – odd to us, but still life – can happen in Earth’s subsurface, could they happen in the deep parts of other planets?

Consider these discoveries:

In July, researchers found what they believe to be a lake under the southern polar ice cap of Mars. Water is a key component of the life we know. “This really qualifies as a body of water. A lake, not some kind of meltwater filling some space between rock and ice, as happens in certain glaciers on Earth,” Roberto Orosei of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics told the BBC.
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – by the NASA Kepler spacecraft increased the possibility for life elsewhere, especially those exoplanets at the special distance from their star in a habitable zone (that is, an area that has the right conditions for life). Planets in our solar system have moons; now astronomers are theorizing that exoplanets must also have moons, thus increasing the possibility for life.

While the report pushes exploring via an outside-the-box focus, Sherwood Lollar also emphasizes that “the committee is not recommending that space scientists and agencies do everything.” In fact, she says, it is essential to strategize and to plan carefully and to ensure that governments, research institutions and agencies work closely together on how to conduct the search for life.

“It’s a very human report in that sense. It’s about teamwork. It isn’t a solitary, ivory tower kind of exercise. Scientists have to be deeply engaged in their own communities and with the broader public. That’s how we do our best work in any area of research.”

But how important is this search for life elsewhere? Wouldn’t the high expenditures associated with space research be better spent on the problems more directly associated with life on Earth?

“It’s an excellent question and one I ask myself. So I say this: Astrobiology is about the study of life in the universe, which means it is about life on Earth. We need to take a broad view of the scientific enterprise and recognize that the search for life off Earth can have important ramifications for what we do to keep this planet habitable. Life will persist for us. The question is what will the quality of that life be?

“So if you care about this planet, there are aspects of astrobiology that are deeply integrated in the health of Earth. It’s not an either-or proposition. It’s about broad-scale thinking about how planetary systems are linked. And that becomes more vital by the day with climate change on this planet.”

U of T astrophysicist teams up with NASA, uses sound to showcase latest galactic discovery

Romi Levine — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 16:07:36 +0000

U of T astrophysicist teams up with NASA, uses sound to showcase latest galactic discovery

Romi Levine Thu, 07/12/2018 - 12:07

Cutline

The detection of gamma rays coming from a black hole has helped scientists understand one of the universe's mysteries (illustration by NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT)

Romi Levine

Topic

Global Lens

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics

Faculty of Arts & Science

NASA

As scientists on Thursday announced the discovery of the source of high-energy particles hitting the Earth – a mystery that has plagued astrophysicists for over a century – a U of T astrophysicist has been working with NASA to help share that experience through sound.

Research led by the National Science Foundation at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the South Pole has found that some of the particles – sometimes called cosmic rays – appear to be coming from an active galactic nucleus, called a blazar, which contains a “monster” black hole.

NASA’s orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope also spotted gamma rays – a form of electromagnetic radiation – coming from the direction of the blazar, helping scientists track the source of the cosmic rays.

To illustrate the passage of these rays, NASA teamed up with Matt Russo, a planetarium operator at U of T’s Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, who along with his musician colleague Andrew Santaguida creates music out of the movements of the universe as the musical group SYSTEM Sounds.

Russo, who was formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science, is also a musician and has worked with Santaguida and other researchers to design a planetarium show for the blind and partially sighted. For this announcement, he and Santaguida created an audio accompaniment for the NASA visuals, allowing people to hear what a gamma ray flare might sound like (see video below).

U of T News also spoke with Russo about his work with NASA and how he tells the story of the universe through sound.

How did you end up collaborating with NASA on this announcement?

In June, I went to a conference at CalTech called AstroViz, which gathered all of the big names in astronomy visualization. I wasn't sure how I would fit in at a conference for visualizers since I work mainly with sound, but it worked out perfectly. I happened to talk to the team from NASA who were gearing up for the big announcement, and they had an animation of the blazar's gamma rays being detected that was begging to be heard. They sent over the data, and I finished it with my collaborator Andrew Santaguida in the hotel room that evening. Since then we've been talking to other teams at NASA about other projects and about ways to make astronomy more accessible to the visually impaired.

What is a blazar?

Almost all galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centres, and sometimes we catch them feeding on gas, dust, and stars as they spiral in towards oblivion. All of this energy in such a small space launches a powerful jet at near light speed out of the black hole's North and South poles. When this jet is pointed straight at Earth, we call it a blazar. This would of course be deadly if we were anywhere near the blazar, but they're typically very far away. This one is almost four billion light years away.

Scientists have been watching this one continuously for over 10 years, and in 2017, it flared with an extreme burst of energy lasting several months. It must have been hungry.

The energy released by the whirlpool of gas and the jet creates light at many different wavelengths (radio, microwave, infrared, visible, UV, X-ray, gamma rays) which we can detect with different types of telescopes. This time, scientists have also detected neutrinos from the blazar, which are very light fundamental particles that don't like to interact with other particles. Billions of these pass through you every second, but you'd never know it.

Matt Russo combined his passions of astrophysics and music to create sounds from the movement of the cosmos (photo by Romi Levine)

What goes into creating the sounds for this particular phenomenon?

Gamma rays are so energetic that they strike the detector one at a time, like light-speed pebbles hitting the surface of a pond. We can hear them being detected by playing a raindrop sound for each gamma ray as it's detected while letting the energy of the gamma ray control the pitch of the raindrop. The highest energy gamma rays are heard as the highest pitched notes.

How does it feel having SYSTEM Sounds featured on a world stage like this?

Working with NASA has been a dream of mine for a long time, but I always thought it was out of reach since my scientific research was never focused on space missions. Since I started exploring the universe through sound, I realized that I could help communicate the data gathered by NASA in new ways that would help reach new audiences. Sound gives everyone, including the visually impaired, a visceral and affective way to experience and learn about the cosmos. And there's never going to be a shortage of astronomical data waiting to be heard.

Will you be working on creating sounds for other parts of this discovery?

This discovery is exciting because scientists have observed the same system with two completely different types of “eyes.” In addition to the many different wavelengths of light, they've also detected particles that were ejected from an explosion happening almost four billion light years away. My goal is convert each one of these signals into the separate instruments, or parts, of the complete blazar orchestra.

One small step for man, one giant leap for these U of T engineering students

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 24 May 2017 20:38:23 +0000

One small step for man, one giant leap for these U of T engineering students

geoff.vendeville Wed, 05/24/2017 - 16:38

Cutline

Kevin Wang, Haroon Dawood, Stephanie Gaglione, Kate Lonergan, Jason Martins and Madhushan Perera visited a NASA facility in Mountain View, Calif. after researching a process for making acetic acid on Mars (photo courtesy Stephanie Gaglione)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

NASA

Space

Subheadline

NASA advised U of T mechanical and chemical engineering students on research to extend a mission to Mars

��Ƶ engineering students recently completed a project that was out of this world, in more ways than one.

They brought the far-off prospect of a mission to Mars a little closer to reality by devising a possible solution to a problem with deep space travel: the need to pack light and yet bring everything necessary.

With help from their U of T supervisor, assistant professor of chemical engineering Cathy Chin, and advisers at NASA, the undergraduate students came up with a way to make products like food, pharmaceuticals and fuel using elements of the Martian atmosphere.

The U of T project would require much more testing before it could safely be deployed after travelling millions of kilometers through space. However, it shows promise, according to NASA environmental scientist John Hogan.

“Their work may have real applications,” he told U of T News. “Both in the future of Earth and in space, being able to efficiently manufacture materials from carbon dioxide will be a very valuable capability.”

Using carbon dioxide, which is abundant on the red planet, the U of T students say astronauts can follow a two-stage process to make acetic acid – a key component in vinegar. They chose that compound because there are well-established processes for making it, and it can be easily metabolized by bacteria to make useful products in bioreactors, explained Stephanie Gaglione, a chemical engineering student and Rhodes Scholar involved in the project. (A bioreactor is a vessel in which living organisms, particularly bacteria, synthesize materials.)

“Organisms can make very complex products that can't be made by just mixing together chemicals,” she said, “but you need to feed these organisms carbon and an energy source.”

It was up to the mechanical engineering students, with expertise in thermodynamics, to test the concepts and see if they made sense within the constraints of a Mars mission.

“As a mechanical challenge, it's a really interesting system,” said Kate Lonergan, in her last year of a bachelor of applied science in mechanical engineering. “As soon as you send anything into space it just takes on so many extra considerations.”

The U of T team devised a way to make food, pharmaceuticals, fuel and biopolymers using compounds from the Martian atmosphere (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Among other design challenges, the system had to have a lifespan of at least 1,000 days, need little maintenance and be safe to operate – even in case of failure – so as not to endanger the astronauts.

The students say the system is capable of producing 24 kilograms of acetic acid per day and is 70 per cent more efficient than shipping everything needed to the planet. NASA's target for a mission to Mars is the 2030s.

In the spring, Hogan, the NASA scientist, invited the U of T students – Haroon Dawood, Gaglione, Jason Martins, Lonergan, Madhushan Perera and Kevin Wang – to NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. for a tour.

The students were shown around the thermal protection systems branch, where they saw heat-shielding technologies that allow spacecraft to re-enter Earth's atmosphere, and the labs of the bioengineering branch, where they were shown waste processing, water recovery and synthetic biology labs.

“I hope that [the U of T students] see that space exploration is an endeavor that expands the mind to new possibilities,” Hogan said in an interview.

The project was part of U of T's multidisciplinary capstone design course, an opportunity for engineering students of different backgrounds to work together on topics like airplane engine design or health-care delivery and receive advice from industry partners.

Martins, a chemical engineering student and Gates Cambridge Scholar, said the work was eye-opening. “I was most surprised to learn that there are many processes and pathways to utilize carbon dioxide, rather than just treating it as a polluting greenhouse gas,” he said.

The students are optimistic that their work has paved the way for further research into manufacturing basic materials on Mars – maybe even earning them a tiny footnote in the history of space exploration.

“It would be nice to see someday when [the mission to Mars] does succeed that we made even the smallest of contributions to it,” Gaglione said.

NASA

Cosmic dust reveals new insights on the formation of solar system

Twins in space: U of T expert on how space travel affects gene expression

Health after long space missions

Two of a kind

Vision changes after missions

Space eyes and Earth wombs

To find life beyond Earth, 'take off the blinkers,' says U of T’s Barbara Sherwood Lollar

U of T astrophysicist teams up with NASA, uses sound to showcase latest galactic discovery

One small step for man, one giant leap for these U of T engineering students

See a poster of the team's work below: