TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
November 6, 2024
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over the Dolomites
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas is now headed back to the outer Solar System. The massive dusty snowball put on quite a show during its trip near the Sun, resulting in many impressive pictures from planet Earth during October. The featured image was taken in mid-October and shows a defining visual feature of the comet its impressive anti-tail. The image captures Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) with impressively long dust and ion tails pointing up and away from the Sun, while the strong anti-tail composed of more massive dust particles – trails the comet and points down and (nearly) toward the recently-set Sun. In the foreground is village of Tai di Cadore, Italy, with the tremendous Dolomite Mountains in the background. Another comet, C/2024 S1 (ATLAS), once a candidate to rival Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas in brightness, broke up last week during its close approach to our Sun.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
R3 (Strong) Flare Erupts from the Sun
Wednesday, November 06, 2024 14:48 UTC
An R3 (Strong) solar flare erupted from the Sun and peaked at X2.3 at 8:40am ET (1340 UTC).
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
NASA, Bhutan Conclude Five Years of Teamwork on STEM, Sustainability
Nov 04, 2024
NASA and the Kingdom of Bhutan have been actively learning from each other and growing together since 2019.
The seeds planted over those years have ripened into improved environmental conservation, community-based natural resource management, and new remote sensing tools.
Known for its governing philosophy of “gross national happiness,” [Bhutan] has a constitutional mandate to maintain at least 60% forest cover.
The government’s goals include achieving nationwide food security by 2030.
Bhutan first approached the U.S. State Department to partner on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) opportunities for the country, and NASA was invited to help lead these opportunities.
In 2019, Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck visited NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, and was introduced to several NASA programs.
NASA’s Earth scientists and research staff from several complementary programs have helped support Bhutan’s goals by providing data resources and training to make satellite data more useful to communities and decision makers.
Bhutan now uses NASA satellite data in its national land management decisions and plans to foster more geospatial jobs to help address environmental issues.
Supporting Bhutan’s Environmental Decision Makers
Bhutan’s National Land Commission offers tax breaks to farmers to support food security and economic resilience.
However, finding and reaching eligible farmers on the ground can be expensive and time consuming, which means small farmers in remote areas can be missed.
A team from SERVIR – a joint NASA-U.S. Agency for International Development initiative – worked with Bhutanese experts to create decision-making tools like the Farm Action Toolkit (FAcT).
The tool uses imagery from the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey Landsat satellites to identify and measure the country’s farmland.
SERVIR researchers met with agricultural organizations – including Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, National Statistics Bureau, and National Center for Organic Agriculture – to adjust the tool for the country’s unique geography and farming practices.
The Land Commission now uses FAcT to identify small farms and bring support to more of the country.
NASA also develops local capacity to use Earth data through efforts like the Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET).
In early 2024, ARSET staff worked with SERVIR and Druk Holdings and Investments (DHI) to host a workshop with 46 Bhutanese government personnel.
Using tailored local case studies, the teams worked to find ways to better manage natural resources, assist land use planning, and monitor disasters.
“We look forward to continuing this collaboration, as there are still many areas where NASA’s expertise can significantly impact Bhutan’s development goals,” said Manish Rai, an analyst with DHI who helped coordinate the workshop.
“This collaboration is a two-way street. While Bhutan has benefited greatly from NASA’s support, we believe there are also unique insights and experiences that Bhutan can share with NASA, particularly in areas like environmental conservation and community-based natural resource management.”
Encouraging Bhutan’s Future Environmental Leaders
By working with students and educators from primary schools to the university level, Bhutan and NASA have been investing in the country’s future environmental leadership.
Supporting educators and “training trainers” have been pillars of this collaboration. NASA and Bhutan have worked together to boost the skills of early-career Earth scientists.
For example, NASA’s DEVELOP program for undergraduates worked directly with local institutions to create several applied science internships for Bhutanese students studying in the U.S.
Tenzin Wangmo, a high school biology teacher in Bhutan, participated in DEVELOP projects focusing on agriculture and water resources.
According to Wangmo, the lessons learned from those projects have been helpful in connecting with her students about STEM opportunities and environmental issues.
“Most people only think of NASA as going to space, rather than Earth science,” she said. “It was encouraging to my students that there are lots of opportunities for you if you try.”
NASA is also supporting Bhutan’s future environmental leadership through the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) Program.
The GLOBE program is a U.S. interagency outreach program that works with teachers to support STEM literacy through hands-on environmental learning.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/servir/nasa-bhutan-conclude-five-years-of-teamwork-on-stem-sustainability/
10 Things to Know About Tissue Chips and How They Benefit Humanity
November 6, 2024
1 Tissue(s)-on-a-chip (tissue chips) as small as the size and shape of a USB drive are used to study how human tissues respond to extreme stressors (like radiation) and therapeutic treatments (such as pharmaceuticals).
2 The chips contain cell cultures that model the structures and functions of specific human tissues and organs—such as the lungs, heart, pancreas, and liver—and can be linked together to mimic entire physiological systems, such as the blood circulatory system.
3 Tissue chips can be made from adult human cells donated by volunteers.
4 They be created from a simple blood draw, skin cells, or stored cell cultures.
5 The cells can be differentiated (or “turned”) into specialized cell types of the tissues researchers want to study.
6 Space stressors, like microgravity and radiation, can accelerate changes associated with diseases, such as atherosclerosis and bone loss, that normally take many years to manifest on Earth—enabling researchers to study the causes of these changes much more quickly.
7 Since tissue chips are made directly from human cells, they are considered more ‘authentic’ models for comparing scientific and biomedical data and can be used to understand why and how the human body adapts to changes in the spaceflight environment and other extreme conditions.
8 Tissue-chip research could be used to develop improved preventative measures and create personalized medical treatments for humans, both on Earth and in space.
9 NASA, the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and other government agencies are collaborating on tissue chip research to obtain fundamental scientific data to close critical knowledge gaps of human biology.
10 NASA plans to send tissue chips to the Moon for the first time on future Artemis missions, which will enable researchers to gather information about the effects of different gravity levels and deep-space radiation.
https://science.nasa.gov/10-things-to-know-about-tissue-chips-and-how-they-benefit-humanity/
Scientists harvest sweet space-grown rice
2024-11-06 21:54:15
China's autumn grain harvest this year has received a boost from the "Heavenly Palace."
At a crop breeding center in Shanghai, rice ears have turned yellow and fully matured after over 100 days of growth.
These rice seeds were part of a 6-month-long breeding experiment conducted aboard China's space station Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) in 2022. They were planted upon return to Earth and have recently yielded plentiful harvests.
Scientists said they sent six rice seeds to space aboard the Wentian spacecraft two years ago. In-orbit taikonauts bred 59 seeds from the group and brought them back to Earth.
After a selection, the scientists cultivated some high-quality ones in an artificial climate room. They subsequently got around 10,000 new seeds and continued selecting a portion for further large-scale growth in the farm field.
The seeds bred in the space station can be seen as the first generation, those cultivated in the artificial climate room as the second, and those grown in farm fields as the third, according to Zheng Huiqiong, a researcher responsible for the space rice study at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
She said her team had obtained preliminary findings by studying the three generations of space rice seeds.
"The research findings demonstrate that the seeds grown in space can still reproduce on Earth, suggesting the possibility of food production in a space environment," Zheng noted.
Space breeding refers to exposing seeds and strains to cosmic radiation and microgravity during a spaceflight mission to mutate their genes.
When the space-bred samples are brought back to Earth, scientists will examine and evaluate their mutations.
Compared with natural bred types, some are positive, conferring properties favored by farmers, such as greater yields, shorter growth periods and better resistance to diseases.
More importantly, space food is safe for human consumption.
Zhao Hui, an expert with the China Academy of Space Technology, said that unlike genetically modified food-transferring genes from other species, space-bred seeds and strains undergo a mutation of their own genes only.
SWEETER TASTE, MORE ENERGY
How does the rice with an out-of-this-world origin taste? Zheng said it might be sweeter than those bred on Earth.
The research team discovered that the content of glucose and fructose, two types of sugar, in the space-bred seeds was significantly higher than that of ordinary seeds.
"We estimated that they are approximately five or six times higher," Zheng said. Furthermore, the space-bred seeds also contained slightly more protein than ground-bred ones.
"That means space-bred rice tastes sweeter and has more energy," the researcher added.
The density of rice leaves also differs. Compared with naturally bred types, the leaves of the space-bred rice are relatively sparse, making it difficult to achieve high-density planting.
Researchers said they would conduct further studies to find the reasons and make molecular modifications.
The 120-day rice experiment on the Tiangong space station in 2022 represented an achievement as it is the first time ever that rice has been cultivated from germination to reproduction in orbit, showcasing the complete life cycle of this crop.
Previously, such seed-to-seed cultivation had only been achieved with Arabidopsis, canola, peas and wheat on the International Space Station.
"Growing rice in space is much more challenging compared to growing on Earth," Zheng said.
The vacuum environment of space requires an artificial setting for rice cultivation, which involves a completely enclosed environment where light, gas, and water are controlled by taikonauts.
Especially for the light, as rice requires high levels of sunlight for photosynthesis. However, since artificial light sources cannot replicate sunlight perfectly, these rice varieties have to undergo screening or modifications to adapt to the artificial light, Zheng explained.
China has been a pioneering country seeking to apply the technology of space breeding to agricultural farming on the ground.
It conducted its first space breeding experiment in 1987, launching packets of seeds on a satellite and returning them to Earth after exposure to cosmic radiation.
Since then, hundreds of plant species seeds have traveled with dozens of the country's retrievable satellites and Shenzhou spaceships.
In the follow-up study, scientists will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the yield and agronomic characteristics of space-grown rice for space food security concern.
https://english.news.cn/20241106/34fcea0cc8184f40a067ff242a0b9352/c.html