Mantis Society Study Center

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Individual Cherry-Blueberry Trifles

Daily Bite

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Easy as can be, these layered treats are a simple make-ahead dessert. We like to use fresh fruit when in season, but frozen (thawed) fruit is fine too.

Recipe From EatingWell.com

New Horizons’ Next Flyby Target Just Got Weirder!

New post on Universe Today

New Horizons' Next Flyby Target Just Got Weirder!

by Matt Williams

Since it made its historic flyby of Pluto in July of 2015, the New Horizons mission has been venturing farther into the outer Solar System. With the spacecraft still healthy and its system in working order, the mission was extended to include the exploration of additional Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). The first target for this part of its mission is the KBO known as 2014 MU69, which New Horizons is currently making its way towards.

In the past, NASA believed this object was a spherical chunk of ice and rock measuring 18–41 km (10–30 mi) in diameter. However, a more recent occultation observation has led the New Horizon's team to conclude that MU69 may actually be a large object with a chunk taken out of it (an "extreme prolate spheroid") or two objects orbiting very closely together or touching - aka. a close or contact binary.

In 2015, MU69 was identified as one of two potential destinations for New Horizons and was recommended to NASA by the mission science team. It was selected because of the immense opportunities for research it presented. As Alan Stern, the Principle Investigator (PI) for the New Horizons mission at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), indicated at the time:

"2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is just the kind of ancient KBO, formed where it orbits now, that the Decadal Survey desired us to fly by. Moreover, this KBO costs less fuel to reach [than other candidate targets], leaving more fuel for the flyby, for ancillary science, and greater fuel reserves to protect against the unforeseen."

Artist's concept of a binary object, which new data suggests 2014 MU69 (the next flyby target for NASA's New Horizons mission) could be. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker

The most recent observation of the KBO took place on July 17th, 2017, when the object passed in front of a star. This provided the New Horizon's team with an opportunity to measure the resulting dip in the star's luminosity - aka. an occultation - using a series of telescopes that they had deployed to a remote part of Patagonia, Argentina. These sorts of observations are performed regularly in order to obtain estimates of an asteroid's size and position.

In the case of MU69's occulation, the New Horizons team was able to obtain vital data that will help the mission planners to plot the trajectory of their flyby. In addition, the data revealed things about MU69's size, shape, orbit, and the environment that surrounds it. It was because of this that the team began to question earlier estimates on the object's size and shape.

Based on their new observations, they are confident that the object is no more than 30 km (20 mi) long, if it is an extreme prolate spheroid. If, however, it is a binary, the two objects that compose it are believed to measure about 15-20 km (9-12 mi) in diameter each. Alan Stern expanded on these new findings in a recent NASA press statement, saying:

"This new finding is simply spectacular. The shape of MU69 is truly provocative, and could mean another first for New Horizons going to a binary object in the Kuiper Belt. I could not be happier with the occultation results, which promise a scientific bonanza for the flyby."

Artist's concept of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 as a single body (above) with a large chunk taken out of it. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker

The recent stellar occulation was the third of three observations conducted for the New Horizons mission. To prepare for the event, the New Horizons team traveled to Argentina and South Africa on June 3rd. On July 10th, a week before the occultation, NASA's airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) provided support by studying the space around MU69.

Using its 2.5 m (100-inch) telescope, SOFIA was looking for debris that might present a hazard to New Horizons spacecraft as it makes its flyby less than 17 months from now. Last, but certainly not least, the team also relied on data provided by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the ESA's Gaia satellite to calculate and pinpoint where MU69 would cast its shadow on Earth's surface.

Thanks to their assistance, the New Horizons team knew exactly where the occultation shadow would be and set up their "fence line" of small, mobile telescopes accordingly. Marc Buie - the New Horizons co-investigator - was responsible for leading the observation campaign. As he explained, the data it yielded will be of great help in the planning the flyby, but also indicated that their could be some surprises in the future:

"These exciting and puzzling results have already been key for our mission planning," he said, "but also add to the mysteries surrounding this target leading into the New Horizons encounter with MU69, now less than 17 months away."

The flyby with MU69 is scheduled to take place on Jan. 1st, 2019, and will be the most distant flyby in the history of space exploration. In addition to being 1.6 billion km (1 billion mi) from Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft will be 6.5 billion km (4 billion mi) from Earth! What's more, the first-ever study of a KBO is expected to yield some fantastic scientific data, and tell us much about the formation and evolution of our Solar System.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/common/content/videos/podcasts/KBO%20podcast%203%20v2_640x360.mp4

Further Reading: NASA

Matt Williams | August 8, 2017 at 7:40 pm | Tags: 2014 MU69, Featured, New Horizons mission, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) | URL: http://wp.me/p1CHIY-zz3

Comment

See all comments

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:

https://www.universetoday.com/136713/new-horizons-next-flyby-target-just-got-weirder/

How Birth Order Affects Who You Are

Trouble viewing this email? View as a Webpage

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Special Report


	Quiz
	How Birth Order Affects Who You Are
	Can where you fall in your family's lineup affect how your life unfolds? Are firstborns more likely to be CEOs? The answers may surprise you.

What's Wrecking Your Sleep?

See which nighttime habits help and hurt when it comes to insomnia.

The Truth About Aging

Here's what no one tells you about getting older. (Hint: It's not all bad.)

Is Your Diet as Healthy as You Think?

These 15 surprising mistakes can derail your healthy eating efforts.

How Loneliness Affects Your Health

A lack of strong social bonds can lead to serious health problems.

What Happens During a Panic Attack

We explain what it feels like and what you can do about it.

Top Picks

•	Sexless Marriage? What You Can Do

•	Filling Foods That Won't Fill You Out

•	What Is 'Forest Bathing' -- and Should You Try It?

DataScience@NIH Updates from the NIH Interim Associate Director for Data Science

DataScience@NIH Updates

Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

We are considering ways to better share DataScience@NIH news with you. Please send your feedback on this newsletter via email to grace.middleton@nih.gov. We look forward to your comments and strengthening our outreach efforts.

DataScience@NIH New This Week:

Big Data Neuroscience Workshop 2017 Organized by the Advanced Neuroscience Network (ACNN) September 8 - 9, 2017 Bloomington, IN. Register or learn more about the workshop: http://neurosciencenetwork.org/ACNN_Workshop_2017.html.

Reminders You May Need Data Science Opportunities:

The bioCADDIE DDICC Core Team is pleased to announce the release of DataMed v3.0! DataMed is designed to be for data what PubMed has been for scientific literature. This version of the Data Discovery Index (DDI) prototype includes many additional datasets and reflects considerable user/stakeholder input. The user interface has also been updated to reflect this input.

Your feedback is welcome, via the issue tracker included in the landing page.

For more information about DataMed v3.0, email: biocaddie@ucsd.edu or Anupama.E.Gururaj@uth.tmc.edu

Darpa Wants to Build a BS Detector for Science: https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-bs-detector-science

The BD2K Training Coordinating Center has been creating and populating the Educational Resource Discovery Index (ERuDIte), a database of 10,000+ data science educational resources from collective BD2K activities and from around the web.

Learn More: http://www.bigdatau.org/. Find the ERuDite search box at the top of the page to access the database.
To contribute your feedback, contact John Van Horn at: jvanhorn@usc.edu.

Data Science Events:

The BD2K Center for Predictive Computational Phenotyping (CPCP) will co-sponsor a Big Data Analytics-as-a-Service workshop. The first workshop on Big data analytics-as-a-Service: Architecture, Algorithms, and Applications in Health Informatics is taking place on August 14, 2017 (in conjunction with KDD 2017) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The workshop will consist of a combination of invited keynote speakers, panel discussion, and paper/poster presentations.

The Principle Investigator of the BD2K ENIGMA Consortium, Dr. Paul Thompson, will present the Keynote Lecture at the Cognomics Conference being held September 7-8, 2017 in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Registration for this conference is now open.

Registration is open for the California Big Data to Knowledge Workshop September 15, 2017. Register or learn more about the workshop: http://bd2k.ini.usc.edu/caconsortium/2017meeting/.

Data Science Rotation for Advancing Discovery Trip (RoAD-Trip) The BD2K Training Coordinating Center (TCC) has developed the Data Science Rotations for Advancing Discovery (RoAD-Trip) program to specifically foster new collaborations among junior biomedical researchers and senior-level data scientists to address the challenge of translating complex data into new knowledge. Application are due September 16, 2017.

Submissions: We welcome your input! Submissions must be received prior to 12:00 noon ET on Monday to be included in that same week's edition. If you are requesting attendance at an event by Federal employees, it is recommended that you submit your event information a minimum of one month in advance. To submit a news item, contact: Grace.Middleton@nih.gov.

Follow DataScience@NIH on Twitter and Facebook.

This service is provided to you at no charge by the Office of Communication and Public Liaison.

This email was sent using GovDelivery Communications Cloud on behalf of: U.S. National Library of Medicine · 8600 Rockville Pike · Bethesda, MD 20894

[eo-announce] Earth Observatory: What's New Week of 08 August 2017

The latest from NASA's Earth Observatory (08 August 2017)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Features:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/

* Peering through the Sands of Time: Searching for the Origins of Space Archaeology
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SpaceArchaeology/?src=eoa-features
In searching for lost cities and ancient travel routes, an unlikely band of scientists and explorers helped develop a new set of tools for archaeology.

--------------------

Latest Images:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/

* Climate Proofing Rio de Janeiro
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90687&src=eoa-iotd

* When Glaciers and Rivers Collide
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90672&src=eoa-iotd

* Solar Evaporation Ponds near Moab, Utah
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90698&src=eoa-iotd

* Mackenzie Meets Beaufort
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90703&src=eoa-iotd

* Blooming Norwegian Sea
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90692&src=eoa-iotd

* Smoke Spreads Across the U.S. and Canadian West
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90695&src=eoa-iotd

* Plankton Abloom in Washington's Hood Canal
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90679&src=eoa-iotd

* Using Satellites to Assess a Reed Invasion
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90665&src=eoa-iotd

--------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA's Earth Observatory
Where every day is Earth day.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Subscribe To