Gizmorama - November 5, 2014

Good Morning,

A sophomore at the University of Iowa can text the International Space Station thanks to a 20-foot antenna. And, "NO", they can't go to the kegger on Friday.

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives

***
*-- Students text International Space Station using a 20-foot antenna --*
IOWA CITY, Iowa (UPI) - Ross McCurdy is a sophomore at the University of Iowa who is in charge of a 20-foot rooftop antenna that he can use to text the International Space Station.

University of Iowa astronomy professor Phil Kaaret applied for a $10,000 grant to get the antenna, and part of the terms of getting the money was he had to pick an
undergraduate student to run the project. Kaaret recognized McCurdy as a capable astronomy student and chose him for the role.

McCurdy worked on the project through the summer. When McCurdy couldn't directly contact the station, he decided to connect as early as 4 a.m., when the station would be closer to his location, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

McCurdy's first message contained his coordinates and a sentence that read, "Hello from the University of Iowa." He was able to use the station's website to see if the message had gone through, because it tracks messages sent to the station, and he found out his message had made it.

Now, McCurdy is trying to communicate with a small satellite that was launched by the University of Colorado, Boulder called the CubeSat. He has not been successful so far, but he said the satellite is sometimes on sleep mode and doesn't send out a transmission that he can pick up.


*-- Study: Earth has had water since birth of solar system --*
FALMOUTH, Mass. (UPI) - A new study suggests water was available for accumulation on Earth much earlier than scientists thought, almost immediately after the formation of the solar system.

Previously, scientists thought the explosive formation of the Earth and the other inner planets would have vaporated or pushed out any resident water, leaving the molten planet relatively (if not entirely) dry.

The thinking went: the Earth formed, and then water came later. How much later scientists weren't entirely sure, but the general consensus was that the planet waited a few hundred million years for surface water. New research, however, suggests Earth was covered in water just 14 million years after the formation of the inner solar system.

"All the the planets could have gotten their water very early, which means the planets could have been habitable immediately after they formed," Adam Sarafian, a geophysicist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and lead author of the new study on the origin of Earth's water, told Discovery News. "They weren't just sitting there and looking at their watch, waiting for water to come."

Like most of what scientists know about infant Earth, the latest revelation was made possible by the analysis of meteorite samples. Researchers compared the ancient water -- specifically hydrogen isotopes -- found on the meteorites of the mini-planet Vesta to the water found on carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.

Whereas Vesta, found in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, is roughly the same age as Earth, carbonaceous chondrites are the solar system's oldest meteorites, having formed around the same time that the sun was born. Yet their hydrogen isotopes are the same -- suggesting water has been readily available since the beginning of the solar system's formation.

"These primitive meteorites resemble the bulk solar system composition," Sune Nielsen, WHOI researcher and study co-author, told National Geographic. "They have quite a lot of water in them, and have been thought of before as candidates for the origin of Earth's water."

"The study shows that Earth's water most likely accreted at the same time as the rock," co-author Horst Marschall, a geologist at WHOI, added. "The planet formed as a wet planet with water on the surface."

The new study was published this week in Science Magazine.

Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives