Nature Science

NEW DISCOVERIES, NEW SCOPES

While it still seems like science fiction, telescopes that shoot lasers into the sky is a reality. They’ve been at it for a while now, probing, looking to discover answers to cosmic questions.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia. Keck Observatory.

But now, we see them in a whole new light, thanks to the time lapse photography shot by Sean Goebel, an astronomy grad student at the University of Hawaii. Over the course of seven nights, Goebel photographed the laser-zapping scopes at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii. At over 14,000 feet above sea level, this observatory offers one of the best places to view the stars in the northern hemisphere.

Video: Geeky Rocket Guy. Laser-Shooting Telescopes.

Check out the video, set to an awesome soundtrack -- "All Is Violent, All Is Bright," by God Is An Astronaut, and remind yourself, this is really happening -- it is not a dream.

Photo: Sean Hoebel.

Goebel shot the photos on his Canon 5D Mark II and an old Canon XT. His lenses included a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 and a Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 on the 5D, and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 on the XT. For more details visit Goebel’s website.

Photo: Courtesy of NASA. HD 189733b.

Hubble recently discovered a new blue planet, just 63 light years away from earth. Now named HD 189733b, it is a gas giant, whipped by 7,200 km per hour winds, and cooked by its sun to a daily temperature of 1,093 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit).

The blue color doesn’t come from oceans. It is from “glass rain,” silica particles that emit a blue glow in the planet’s foggy atmosphere.

NASA discovered the planet in 2005, but was only now able to determine that the planet is dark blue in color, based on the observations made by Hubble.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia. Artist’s concept.

The Giant Magellan Telescope will be 10 times sharper than Hubble when it’s finally completed in 2022. The build is a long process, as it takes 1 year just to polish each of the seven giant 27-foot wide 20-ton mirrors. And it’s a pricey gadget, ringing in at $700 million.

Scientists are expecting to use this telescope to discover the first stars that formed after the Big Bang, to observe the earliest galaxies as those stars assembled, to answer questions about the origins of black holes, and much more.

The Giant Magellan Telescope will be installed in Chile's Atacama Desert.

Photo: Fernan Federici. Stained plant tissue.

Discovery doesn’t always happen in unchartered territories. Sometimes is happens when a known place or an old technology is repurposed.

Fernan Federici, a biology researcher at Pontificia Univerisdad Catolica de Chile, is studying the process of spontaneous self-organization (like a school of fish swimming in a synchronized darting wave) at a cellular level, looking at bacteria colonies, using fluorescence microscopy.

Photo: Fernan Federici. Chloroplasts in mesophyll cells.

Federici shines a special light at plants, bacteria, and crystals, which, in turn, shine a different colored light back. He can control this light show further by attaching proteins to whatever he is observing, to tag what he wants to see in particular. He is checking out patterns naturally assumed by cells and molecules, trying to discover how they came to exist.

Photo: Fernan Federici.

Once you understand how something self-organizes, you can better figure out how to control it. Scientists are developing something called synthetic biology to attempt to control cellular self-organization. That means they are aiming to control the way things grow.

Is it a beautiful thing? It depends on what it’s used for, of course, from a technological perspective. But either way, Federici’s images are, without question, exquisite studies in color, texture, and repetition.

Check out Federici’s very cool photos on his Flickr site.

Photo: Courtesy of Alex McPherson's lab. (AFM) scan of a crystal of satellite tobacco mosaic virus particles.

Microscopes are enabling glimpses of ever-tinier worlds. The nanometer-resolution atomic force microscope (AFM), originally developed in 1989, gives views at nanoscale -- and even at atomic scales. Of course, their price tag is far from tiny. Commercial AFMs can run as much as $1 million each.

Now there’s a price war.

Photo: Alice Pyne. Lego Microscope.

Grad students, studying at the LEGO2NANO 2013 summer school at Tsinghua University in Beijing, built a nanometer-resolution atomic force microscope for just $500! And it only took them 5 days! How did they manage that? They rose to the challenge by using toys and spare parts.

Photo: Courtesy of Institute of Making, University College London. Lego Microscope.

The AFM works by contacting and scanning across the surface of an object with a very thin probe, using constant force, to produce a scanned image of nanoscale detail. The students made it all happen using only LEGO pieces, Arduino microcontrollers, 3D-printed parts, and simple consumer electronics.

The race is on to build an even cheaper version! New student engineering teams at the Institute of Making at University College of London and at the Open Wisdom Laboratory at Tsinghua University are now working to build a fully functional AFM for less than $100.

Photo: Courtesy of Press TV. Smallest Microscope.

The microscope itself is getting tinier and tinier. Scientists at the University of Western Australia have recently produced the world’s smallest microscope -- so small, it fits inside a needle. The scope is less than a third of a millimeter wide.

Photo: Courtesy of the University of Western Australia. Needle Microscope.

This represents a major breakthrough because it enables surgeons to detect cancer cells missed during operations to remove tumors. Professor Christobel Saunders, a surgeon and breast cancer specialist says, “We really can see at a microscopic level where there is tumour. So it’s almost like an ultrasound picture, but at a microscopic level.”

Trials are expected within two years. Needle scopes could become commonplace around the world within a decade.

Read about beautiful discoveries all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including Discover New Books on Discovery.