Space Weather: Explosions On Venus

When discontinuities in the solar wind remain in contact with a planet's bow shock, they can collect a pool of hot particles that becomes a hot flow anomaly (HFA). An HFA on Venus most likely acts like a vacuum, pulling up parts of the planet’s atmosphere.

In the grand scheme of the solar system, Venus and Earth are almost the same distance from the sun. Yet the planets differ dramatically: Venus is some 100 times hotter than Earth and its days more than 200 times longer. The atmosphere on Venus is so thick that the longest any spacecraft has survived on its surface before being crushed is a little over two hours. There's another difference, too. Earth has a magnetic field and Venus does not -- a crucial distinction when assessing the effects of the sun on each planet.As the solar wind rushes outward from the sun at nearly a million miles per hour, it is stopped about 44,000 miles away from Earth when it collides with the giant magnetic envelope that surrounds the planet called the magnetosphere. Most of the solar wind flows around the magnetosphere, but in certain circumstances it can enter the magnetosphere to create a variety of dynamic space weather effects on Earth. Venus has no such protective shield, but it is still an immovable rock surrounded by an atmosphere that disrupts and interacts with the solar wind, causing interesting space weather effects.

A recent study, appearing online in the Journal of Geophysical Research on February 29, 2012, has found clear evidence on Venus for a type of space weather outburst quite common at Earth, called a hot flow anomaly. These anomalies, also known as HFAs, cause a temporary reversal of the solar wind that normally moves past a planet. An HFA surge causes the material to flood backward, says David Sibeck, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who studies HFAs at Earth and is a co-author on the paper.

"They are an amazing phenomenon," says Sibeck. "Hot flow anomalies release so much energy that the solar wind is deflected, and can even move back toward the sun. That's a lot of energy when you consider that the solar wind is supersonic -- traveling faster than the speed of sound -- and the HFA is strong enough to make it turn around."

Observing an HFA on Venus will help scientists tease out how space weather is similar and different at this planet so foreign to our own. With no magnetic field to interact with, space weather at Venus is milder than that at Earth, but occurs much closer to the surface.

"Hot flow anomalies average one a day near Earth," says Goddard scientist Glyn Collinson and the first author on the new paper. "They've been seen at Saturn, they may have been seen at Mars, and now we're seeing them at Venus. But at Venus, since there's no protective magnetic field, the explosion happens right above the surface of the planet."

The search for this kind of space weather on Venus began in 2009 when NASA's Messenger satellite, which is actually a mission to study Mercury, spotted what may well have been an HFA at Venus. But Messenger's instruments could only measure a suggestive magnetic signature, not detect the temperature of the material inside, a necessary measurement to confirm the heat of a "hot" flow anomaly. For further evidence, Collinson turned to a European Space Agency spacecraft called Venus Express. Venus Express was not designed to study space weather phenomena per se, but it does have instruments that can detect magnetic fields and the charged particles, or plasma, that make up the solar wind. Collinson began to search for the telltale signatures of an HFA through a few days worth of data.

"That may not sound like much," he says. "But a day on Venus is 243 Earth days."

Collinson looked for a pattern of magnetic change that would indicate the spacecraft traveled through one of these gigantic explosions. Envision what a bullet might experience if shot through a hot air balloon -- a moment of heat in an otherwise fairly temperature-consistent journey. In this case, the heat comes with other characteristics as well: The boundaries show an abrupt change in the magnetic fields, and the inside is less dense than the outside. Given a set of instruments that were not specifically designed to find this signature, the search turned up quite a long list of potential, but not conclusive, events.

But his work eventually paid off. A combination of magnetic and plasma data shows that a Venusian hot flow anomaly did indeed take place on March 22, 2008.

By taking the Venus Express data and comparing it to the known physics at Earth, the scientists painted a possible picture of how an HFA forms at Venus. The moving solar wind with its attendant magnetic fields harbors discontinuities, areas where the magnetic fields change direction, sharply and abruptly. Sometimes these discontinuities align with the flow of the solar wind, so they remain in contact with what's called the bow shock -- the place where the supersonic solar wind slows down abruptly and diverts around the planet. If such a discontinuity travels slowly across the bow shock it allows time to trap particles, collecting pools of 10 million degree plasma that can expand to be as big as Earth.

"These plasma particles are trapped in place," says Sibeck. "They make a big puddle that gets bigger and bigger, sending out its own shock waves. Everything downstream from that bubble is going to be different than what's upstream."

Those downstream disturbances are what make HFAs interesting. These eruptions create global disturbances far beyond the mere local disruption of a hot plasma explosion. These eruptions of solar material can compress the entire magnetosphere around Earth for minutes at a time, shaking the particles along magnetic lines and causing them to fall into Earth's atmosphere near the magnetic poles to create dayside aurora.

Understanding what the HFAs do in the non-magnetized Venusian environment, of course, would require direct observations that the current data sets from Venus Express do not provide. However Collinson and his colleagues have made some educated guesses. "At Earth, HFAs have a big effect, but don't necessarily rule the roost," says Collinson. "But at Venus, since the HFA happens right up next to the planet, it is going to have a more dramatic effect on the system."

The bow shock on Venus serves as the boundary between the incoming solar wind, and the planet's own ionosphere -- a layer of atmosphere filled with charged particles. This boundary changes in height easily in response to the environment, and so the scientists believe it would also respond strongly in the presence of an HFA. Since the HFA causes material to flow sunward, away from the planet, it may operate almost like a vacuum cleaner, pulling that bow shock further away from Venus. The size of the ionosphere would swell in concert.

That HFAs can occur on a planet without a magnetic field suggests that they may well happen on planets throughout the solar system, and indeed in other solar systems as well.

New Computers Respond to Students' Emotions, Boredom

New emotion-sensing computer software models and responds
to students' cognitive and emotional
states -- including frustration and boredom

 Emotion-sensing computer software that models and responds to students' cognitive and emotional states -- including frustration and boredom -- has been developed by University of Notre Dame Assistant Professor of Psychology Sidney D'Mello, Art Graesser from the University of Memphis and a colleague from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. D'Mello also is a concurrent assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

The new technology, which matches the interaction of human tutors, not only offers tremendous learning possibilities for students, but also redefines human-computer interaction.

"AutoTutor" and "Affective AutoTutor" can gauge the student's level of knowledge by asking probing questions; analyzing the student's responses to those questions; proactively identifying and correcting misconceptions; responding to the student's own questions, gripes and comments; and even sensing a student's frustration or boredom through facial expression and body posture and dynamically changing its strategies to help the student conquer those negative emotions.

"Most of the 20th-century systems required humans to communicate with computers through windows, icons, menus and pointing devices," says D'Mello, who specializes in human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence in education.

"But humans have always communicated with each other through speech and a host of nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, eye contact, posture and gesture. In addition to enhancing the content of the message, the new technology provides information regarding the cognitive states, motivation levels and social dynamics of the students."

AutoTutor is an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) that helps students learn complex technical content in Newtonian physics, computer literacy and critical thinking by holding a conversation in natural language; simulating teaching and motivational strategies of human tutors; modeling students' cognitive states; using its student model to dynamically tailor the interaction to individual students; answering students' questions; identifying and correcting misconceptions; and keeping students engaged with images, animations and simulations. In addition to these capabilities, Affective AutoTutor adds emotion-sensitive capabilities by monitoring facial features, body language and conversational cues; regulating negative states such as frustration and boredom; and synthesizing emotions via the content of its verbal responses, speech intonation and facial expressions of an animated teacher.

D'Mello's study, titled "AutoTutor and Affective AutoTutor: Learning by Talking with Cognitively and Emotionally Intelligent Computers that Talk Back," that details this new technology will be published in special edition of ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems that highlights innovative technology of the last decade.

"Much like a gifted human tutor, AutoTutor and Affective AutoTutor attempt to keep the student balanced between the extremes of boredom and bewilderment by subtly modulating the pace, direction and complexity of the learning task," D'Mello says.

Considerable empirical evidence has shown that one-on-one human tutoring is extremely effective when compared to typical classroom environments, and AutoTutor and Affective AutoTutor closely model the pedagogical styles, dialogue patterns, language and gestures of human tutors. They are also one of the few ITSs that help learning by engaging students in natural language dialogues that closely mirror human-human tutorial dialogues.

Tested on more than 1,000 students, AutoTutor produces learning gains of approximately one letter grade -- gains that have proven to outperform novice human tutors and almost reach the bar of expert human tutors.

Oxygen Detected in Atmosphere of Saturn's Moon Dione

        Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and an international research team have announced discovery of molecular oxygen ions (O₂+) in the upper-most atmosphere of Dione, one of the 62 known moons orbiting the ringed planet. The research appeared recently in Geophysical Research Letters and was made possible via instruments aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which was launched in 1997.

Dione -- discovered in 1684 by astronomer Giovanni Cassini (after whom the spacecraft was named) -- orbits Saturn at roughly the same distance as our own moon orbits Earth. The tiny moon is a mere 700 miles wide and appears to be a thick, pockmarked layer of water ice surrounding a smaller rock core. As it orbits Saturn every 2.7 days, Dione is bombarded by charged particles (ions) emanating from Saturn's very strong magnetosphere. These ions slam into the surface of Dione, displacing molecular oxygen ions into Dione's thin atmosphere through a process called sputtering.

Molecular oxygen ions are then stripped from Dione's exosphere by Saturn's strong magnetosphere.

A sensor aboard the Cassini spacecraft called the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) detected the oxygen ions in Dione's wake during a flyby of the moon in 2010. Los Alamos researchers Robert Tokar and Michelle Thomsen noted the presence of the oxygen ions.

"The concentration of oxygen in Dione's atmosphere is roughly similar to what you would find in Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of about 300 miles," Tokar said. "It's not enough to sustain life, but -- together with similar observations of other moons around Saturn and Jupiter -- these are definitive examples of a process by which a lot of oxygen can be produced in icy celestial bodies that are bombarded by charged particles or photons from the Sun or whatever light source happens to be nearby."

Perhaps even more exciting is the possibility that on a moon with subsurface water, such as Jupiter's moon Europa, molecular oxygen could combine with carbon in subsurface lakes to form the building blocks of life. Future missions to Europa could help unravel questions about that moon's habitability.

Two sensors aboard Cassini built by Los Alamos National Laboratory are expected to come into play beginning later this month, and again in April and May, when the Cassini spacecraft flies by the moon Enceladus. The moon is one of the brightest objects in our solar system, reflecting back nearly all of the sunlight that strikes it, thanks to a shimmering surface of snowy ice crystals. The moon also unleashes plumes ofmaterial from its south polar region. Los Alamos' ion-beam spectrometer and ion-mass spectrometer may help answer key questions about the composition of these plumes.

Science of Sex Appeal: A Sexy Walk

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/35978-science-of-sex-appeal-a-sexy-walk-video.htm

8 Current Technologies That Will Shape Our Future

Rick Chin is the director of product innovation at SolidWorks, where he develops new products and researches how technology will make us smarter, simplify daily tasks and seamlessly fit into our everyday lives.

In 20 years our technology will reach a level of personalization that will enhance every moment of our lives. We’ll be more physically comfortable with the furniture we sit on and the products we hold; only the most relevant and personalized information from friends and family will reach us; and our movement in the digital world will be near telepathic.

I foresee several of today’s technologies as relevant to this particular vision of the future. They will evolve to not only be more powerful, but also more integrated with one other 

1. Smartphones

Smartphones, like today’s iPhone, are as much a computer as they are a communication device. Besides having a great multi-touch interface and fast CPU, they contain sensors like cameras, gyros, accelerometers, GPS and compasses. They allow us to calculate and communicate anytime, anywhere.

In the future, they’ll evolve into personal mobile computers (PMC). Assuming thatMoore’s law holds true, mobile CPUs with near super-computing speeds will be entirely possible. The number, accuracy and performance of sensors will grow, the combination of which will give the user a very powerful sense of her surroundings.

Your PMC will move to your wrist and take the place of your watch. (Microsoft had this vision with SPOT, but the technology came too early and was too limited.) The device’s display will not need to be your primary user interface (UI), so the PMC can be a small, diverse fashion statement like today’s watches. The primary UI will become personal peripherals, like information glasses and headsets. You’ll be able to interact naturally in a visual and audible way.

Your PMC and personal peripherals will become your interface to every other computer, device and machine you interact with. The only UI you will ever need to know is that of your PMC.

Not only will your personal peripherals allow you to explicitly interact with the digital (and physical) worlds, but they’ll also provide subtle cues to your subconscious. While looking through your information glasses, a restaurant might emit a subtle, warm blue tint because it was reviewed positively by patrons. It will feel like a good place to eat. Are your spidey senses tingling?

2. 3G and 4G Wireless Broadband

“How many bars do I have?” We’re frequently checking smartphone signal strength when wirelessly browsing the Internet and retrieving our email. Today’s 3G and 4G networks provide acceptable but intermittent connections and okay speed. This must change.

The deployment of today’s cell towers is a slow, deliberate and costly affair. In the future, deployment will be faster and more organic. Wireless providers will likely credit homeowners’ monthly bills for having devices like AT&T’s 3G MicroCell at home. With enough of these devices in place, even remote neighborhoods and towns will enjoy solid wireless access to the cloud.

So in the future, personal mobile computers (PMCs) won’t even have signal strength indicars; wireless access to the cloud will be pervasive and ultra-fast at all times.

we3. Cloud Computing

There is certainly a lot of hype around cloud computing, but few technology providers have done a good job explaining or providing services that are relevant to the average person.

The two most notable exceptions are Google and Apple. Google Docs is arguably the first cloud-based app that gained mainstream traction. Apple’s iCloudlooks like it has the potential to cross the chasm and move the early majority into the cloud.

With tomorrow’s cloud computing, all of our personal information and the applications will be available to us at any time. Whether you’re editing a text document while riding a train, or adjusting a sales proposal at a client’s office, you’ll never be without the information needed to complete a task. cloud will be pervasive and ultra-fast at all times.

4. Eye-Tracking / Voice Commands

Today’s eye-tracking technology from companies like Tobii is used heavily in usability research. Where are people looking on a webpage, and how do their eyes move around it? Voice recognition products like Dragon from Nuance are used extensively when transcribing voice to text.

In the future, this technology will be combined with augmented reality (AR) to create a near-invisible and natural user interface for your PMC. We’ll call these information glasses. The object you’re viewing and the words you speak will be transmitted to your PMC, which will interpret your intent, find and compute and then transmit the results back to you visually and/or verbally. Look at a restaurant and say, “Do they have good salads there?” A moment later, you will hear the highest-rated salads, communicated via your information glasses either by visual display or audible voice, depending on what you are doing at that moment, like driving.

5. Augmented Reality

Today’s augmented reality (AR) will add floating text, symbols and 3D virtual images to a camera’s video feed to make it more informative or entertaining. Numerous iPhone apps like Layar provide local information. Tissot watches and Olympus cameras have webpages that let you experience virtual products. And Lego has a great point of sale display that lets kids virtually play with the toy inside the box they’re holding. You can even use AR glasses to experience this technology in a slightly more immersive, first-person point of view.

In the future, AR glasses will project images onto the lenses using components that are barely noticeable. Your PMC will display information on your glasses much like a heads-up display (HUD), for instance, with symbols projected along the periphery. Look at a symbol and say something, and your PMC will act on the broadcasted message. Your PMC will also do a great job of minimizing the information displayed, limiting it to just what you need to know now.

6. Social Networking

Social networking as it exists today onFacebook and Twitter requires users to do extra work to extract value. We must diligently manage our community of friends and followers, and weed through all the tweets and posts for those that pique our interest. In the future, the management of our network will be dynamic and automated; the system will make and break connections to ensure maximum value. As updates are posted, for example, only those relevant to you at the present moment will make it through the filter to your PMC.

Social networking may also become more integrated with other components of our digital lives, like our calendars, address books and GPS. When going to a scheduled meeting with someone, you may be presented with recent and relevant posts that person made on Facebook to help prepare for small talk.

7. CAD, 3D Printing & Custom Products

Computer-aided design (CAD) products are popular among engineers, designers and students for creating 3D product designs. But the software is often too advanced for the average consumer to design his or her own products.

In the future, however, CAD will allow the average consumer to design his own custom products that are both manufacturable and affordable. Consumers will be able to use simple software to combine predefined, configured product features. They’ll be able to personalize further by adding their own color palate, pictures, shapes and even personalized sizing.

3D Printing (3DP), like that from Dimension, is another amazing technology that will take a 3D CAD model and “print” layers of material, one on top of the previous, to produce a real physical model. It can create almost any shape, even those that can’t be made by traditional manufacturing. The downside today is that the process is slow, costly, and often doesn’t produce parts strong enough for real world use. The technology in this industry is always advancing, and in the future, it will be able to produce robust parts quickly and cheaply.

3D Printing in an industrial setting is often referred to as “additive manufacturing.” As products are ordered online, versatile manufacturing stations controlled by robots will quickly and affordably crank out custom-manufactured products. The robots will be controlled by process software that will be integrated with future CAD.

Online custom products are slowly gaining popularity. You can go to NIKEiD and design your own customized Nike shoes. The downside is that they are pricey and will take several weeks to get to you. Other websites such as ShapeWays and Ponokoare useful for many DIYers. The mass market appeal of sites like these will grow in the future (when combined with the simpler CAD described above) with fast, flexible and inexpensive manufacturing.

8. Autonomous Cars

Today’s cars are packed with a variety of driver assistance aids. You can get most any car today with GPS, but luxury car makers such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo provide a whole lot more. Options now include active cruise control, lane departure warning/intervention, traffic info and blind spot warning. These cars can even brake on their own to avoid hitting an obstacle or pedestrian in front of the vehicle.

A few years ago, DARPA ran its Grand Challenge, in which teams competed to race fully autonomous cars that drove themselves. They were tested in off-road, highway and urban settings. Some of these competitors later went to work for Google’s autonomous vehicle efforts.

In the future, we will have autonomous cars, where driver control will be optional. Even though the thought might seem scary, the cars will be safer than any car you’d pilot yourself. They will constantly evaluate their current environment with multiple sensors -- and they’ll never get distracted by text messages.

Will they be complex to operate? Not at all. Your PMC will act as a user interface to any device, including your autonomous car. It will know your schedule and address book, so when you get into your car one hour before an appointment, the car’s GPS will instantly display the destination address and arrival time. All you have to do is say, “Let’s go!”