Dudeney Dissection From A Square To An Equilateral Triangle. Only 4 Pieces!

Physical Science...In Space!

Each month, we highlight a different research topic on the International Space Station. In May, our focus is physical science.

The space station is a laboratory unlike any on Earth; on-board, we can control gravity as a variable and even remove it entirely from the equation. Removing gravity reveals fundamental aspects of physics hidden by force-dependent phenomena such as buoyancy-driven convection and sedimentation.

Gravity often masks or distorts subtle forces such as surface tension and diffusion; on space station, these forces have been harnessed for a wide variety of physical science applications (combustion, fluids, colloids, surface wetting, boiling, convection, materials processing, etc).

Other examples of observations in space include boiling in which bubbles do not rise, colloidal systems containing crystalline structures unlike any seen on Earth and spherical flames burning around fuel droplets. Also observed was a uniform dispersion of tin particles in a liquid melt, instead of rising to the top as would happen in Earth’s gravity. 

So what? By understanding the fundamentals of combustion and surface tension, we may make more efficient combustion engines; better portable medical diagnostics; stronger, lighter alloys; medicines with longer shelf-life, and buildings that are more resistant to earthquakes.

Findings from physical science research on station may improve the understanding of material properties. This information could potentially revolutionize development of new and improved products for use in everything from automobiles to airplanes to spacecraft.

For more information on space station research, follow @ISS_Research on Twitter!

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

Dark Energy

Dark energy is in physical cosmology and astrology as an unknown form of energy that permeates through space making up for 68.3% of the observable universe (dark matter takes up 26.8%, only 4.9% is ordinary matter). Dark energy is currently the most accepted hypothesis to explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate (if the observable universe comprised of only the ordinary matter we see, the universe would be expanding at a much slower rate than it currently is thus meaning dark matter and dark energy make up the mass for the accelerated rate of expansion). On a mass–energy equivalence basis, the density of dark energy (6.91 × 10^−27 kg/m3) is very low, much less than the density of ordinary matter or dark matter within galaxies.

Dark energy is not known to react with any of the fundamental forces other than gravity. It clearly has a large impact on the universe making up for 68.3% of universal density, only because it fills an otherwise empty space. The two current leading models are a cosmological constant and quintessence. Both models conclude that dark energy must have a negative pressure.

The effect of dark energy: a small constant negative pressure of vacuum

More 1961 - 1969 Lincoln Continentals

Spontaneous symmetry breaking

A good way to get an idea of what this is like is through water. Water has four different forms it could take depending on the conditions; frost, snow, ice and rime. Spontaneous symmetry breaking is sort of like this.

At the start of the big bang there was a single force which started off hot and as it expanded began to cool and in 1x10-46s (supposed to be scientific notation) gravity came into existence.

Now there is gravity and the force energy of the universe. This force energy then split into the strong nuclear force (SNF) at about 1x10-36s.

Then shorty after the massive inflation at 1x10-22s (where the universe expanded from about the size of a proton to that of a orange), the weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force (or electroweak force as we now know that they are the same) came into existence at the same time at 1x10-12s.

So from one force, in 1x10-12s all the different forces have fallen out.

In about 1x10-6 quark confinement would happen, from 3-20 minutes the nuclei would begin to form, there is still too much energy for the electrons to be bound to the nuclei. Atoms would not form for about 380,000 years.

Well this has been a brief and simple intro to spontaneous symmetry breaking, hope you guys liked it. 

5 things you didn’t know about...aluminium

Credit: beejung / Shutterstock

1. Despite being the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, aluminium is a young metal, discovered less than 200 years ago. It is now the second most used metal in the world, after iron.

2. Aluminium was named after alum, derived from the latin Alumenen, meaning ‘a bitter salt’, by Sir Humphry Davy. In 1808, Davy suggested Aluminium could be produced by electrolytic reduction from alumina (aluminium oxide), but did not manage to prove the theory in practice.

3. The first person to produce small amount of aluminium was Danish chemist Hans Christian Oersted, on 8 April 1825. However, this may not have been pure aluminium, but an alloy with the elements used in the experiments in the process of isolating the aluminium.

4. The first aluminium products are considered to be medals made during Napoléon III’s reign. Friedrich Woehler, a German chemist who improved Oersted’s isolation process, designed a rattle for Crown Prince Louis Napoléon made of aluminium and gold.

5. Aluminium is 100% recyclable. It is estimated that 75% of all aluminium ever produced, about 750 million tonnes, is still in use, and could all be recycled into new products.

Find out more about this on page 62 of the upcoming March issue of Materials World.  

Scientists have discovered a worm that eats plastic bags and leave behind antifreeze

Polyethylene: not your average meal

The wax worm, a caterpillar typically used for fishing bait and known for damaging beehives by eating their wax comb, has now been observed munching on a different material: plastic bags.

Scientist Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain first noticed the wax worms’ plastic-eating skills when she was cleaning up a wax worm infestation in one of the beehives she keeps at home. She put the worms in a plastic bag, tied it closed, and put the bag in a room of her house while she finished cleaning the hive. When she returned to the room, “they were everywhere,” Bertocchini said in a statement. They’d escaped by chewing their way out of the bag, and fast.

“This project began there and then,” she said. In a paper published in Current Biology on Monday (April 24), Bertocchini and her colleagues described 100 wax worms chewing through a polyethylene shopping bag—the kind that people discard at a rate of 1 trillion per year globally—in around 40 minutes. After 12 hours, the bag was significantly shredded.

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