icy science e-magazine winter 2014
DESCRIPTION
In this edition of ICY SCIENCE we look at life on Mars by the Mars Society, the expansion of the universe and a universe from nothing. For more please visit www.icyscience.comTRANSCRIPT
EXTANT LIFE ON MARS
ICY SCIENCE PUBLICATION WWWICYSCIENCECOM WINTER 201314
2
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THIS ISSUE
4 IN THE NEWS
8 Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe
Part 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo contin-ued Expansion
15 Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
8 LIFE ON MARS
Contact
E dboodicysciencecom
TWITTER DavesAstronomy
W wwwicysciencecom
3
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THIS ISSUE
4 IN THE NEWS
8 Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe
Part 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo contin-ued Expansion
15 Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
8 LIFE ON MARS
Welcome to the Winter 2014 edition of Icy
Science Quarterly E-Magazine This quarter we
have some more interesting articles from the
world of science from life on Mars to the mys-
teries of the universe
I would like to thank our writers for this edition
Dan Lucas Ant Ryan and Nicole Willet all can
be follwed via twitter blogs and their websites
Enjoy Dave B Editor
WHOrsquoS WHO
EDITOR- Dave Bood
WRITERSDAN LUCASANT RYAN
NICLOSE WILLET
4
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
Ebola outbreak NHS volunteers fly to Sierra Leone
The first group of NHS volunteers have left for Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus
Around 30 GPs nurses psychiatrists and emer-gency medicine consultants left London Heathrow just after 1700 GMT bound for the West African country
They will train for a week in the capital Freetown before moving to treatment centres across the country
MORE AT BBC NEWS
EBOLA CONTINUES TO SPREAD
Mali New Ebola case confirmed 2 more
suspected
BAMAKO Mali (AP) mdash Mali on Saturday con-
firmed a new case of Ebola and said two more
suspected patients are being tested raising
concern about a further spread of the disease
which has already killed at least five people in
the country
PHILAE COMET LANDER SLEEPING
Philaersquos fate remains unknown as it snoozes underneath a cliff on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko But in the
last few days its ground crew has released a handful of updates that give us a better idea of what itrsquos gone
through since it left Rosetta for the comet as well as of its current state To start with the team has released
a 3D image of the cometrsquos surface (seen after the break) from two miles above the ground captured one hour
before the intrepid lander was supposed touch down Philae took the two photos of the original landing site two
minutes apart using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)
SOURCE ENGADGET
5
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
3D Printing the Future
Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life
The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects revealing how 3D printers inspire cre-
ativity and ground-breaking design
The stories wersquove uncovered focus on the future of industry medicine and whether 3D printing will change your
shopping experience For example
lighter more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts ndash from those
already used today to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpen-
ter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers
SOURCE
httpwwwsciencemuseumorguk
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
2
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THIS ISSUE
4 IN THE NEWS
8 Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe
Part 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo contin-ued Expansion
15 Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
8 LIFE ON MARS
Contact
E dboodicysciencecom
TWITTER DavesAstronomy
W wwwicysciencecom
3
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THIS ISSUE
4 IN THE NEWS
8 Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe
Part 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo contin-ued Expansion
15 Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
8 LIFE ON MARS
Welcome to the Winter 2014 edition of Icy
Science Quarterly E-Magazine This quarter we
have some more interesting articles from the
world of science from life on Mars to the mys-
teries of the universe
I would like to thank our writers for this edition
Dan Lucas Ant Ryan and Nicole Willet all can
be follwed via twitter blogs and their websites
Enjoy Dave B Editor
WHOrsquoS WHO
EDITOR- Dave Bood
WRITERSDAN LUCASANT RYAN
NICLOSE WILLET
4
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
Ebola outbreak NHS volunteers fly to Sierra Leone
The first group of NHS volunteers have left for Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus
Around 30 GPs nurses psychiatrists and emer-gency medicine consultants left London Heathrow just after 1700 GMT bound for the West African country
They will train for a week in the capital Freetown before moving to treatment centres across the country
MORE AT BBC NEWS
EBOLA CONTINUES TO SPREAD
Mali New Ebola case confirmed 2 more
suspected
BAMAKO Mali (AP) mdash Mali on Saturday con-
firmed a new case of Ebola and said two more
suspected patients are being tested raising
concern about a further spread of the disease
which has already killed at least five people in
the country
PHILAE COMET LANDER SLEEPING
Philaersquos fate remains unknown as it snoozes underneath a cliff on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko But in the
last few days its ground crew has released a handful of updates that give us a better idea of what itrsquos gone
through since it left Rosetta for the comet as well as of its current state To start with the team has released
a 3D image of the cometrsquos surface (seen after the break) from two miles above the ground captured one hour
before the intrepid lander was supposed touch down Philae took the two photos of the original landing site two
minutes apart using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)
SOURCE ENGADGET
5
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
3D Printing the Future
Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life
The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects revealing how 3D printers inspire cre-
ativity and ground-breaking design
The stories wersquove uncovered focus on the future of industry medicine and whether 3D printing will change your
shopping experience For example
lighter more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts ndash from those
already used today to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpen-
ter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers
SOURCE
httpwwwsciencemuseumorguk
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
3
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THIS ISSUE
4 IN THE NEWS
8 Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our Universe
Part 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo contin-ued Expansion
15 Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
8 LIFE ON MARS
Welcome to the Winter 2014 edition of Icy
Science Quarterly E-Magazine This quarter we
have some more interesting articles from the
world of science from life on Mars to the mys-
teries of the universe
I would like to thank our writers for this edition
Dan Lucas Ant Ryan and Nicole Willet all can
be follwed via twitter blogs and their websites
Enjoy Dave B Editor
WHOrsquoS WHO
EDITOR- Dave Bood
WRITERSDAN LUCASANT RYAN
NICLOSE WILLET
4
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
Ebola outbreak NHS volunteers fly to Sierra Leone
The first group of NHS volunteers have left for Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus
Around 30 GPs nurses psychiatrists and emer-gency medicine consultants left London Heathrow just after 1700 GMT bound for the West African country
They will train for a week in the capital Freetown before moving to treatment centres across the country
MORE AT BBC NEWS
EBOLA CONTINUES TO SPREAD
Mali New Ebola case confirmed 2 more
suspected
BAMAKO Mali (AP) mdash Mali on Saturday con-
firmed a new case of Ebola and said two more
suspected patients are being tested raising
concern about a further spread of the disease
which has already killed at least five people in
the country
PHILAE COMET LANDER SLEEPING
Philaersquos fate remains unknown as it snoozes underneath a cliff on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko But in the
last few days its ground crew has released a handful of updates that give us a better idea of what itrsquos gone
through since it left Rosetta for the comet as well as of its current state To start with the team has released
a 3D image of the cometrsquos surface (seen after the break) from two miles above the ground captured one hour
before the intrepid lander was supposed touch down Philae took the two photos of the original landing site two
minutes apart using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)
SOURCE ENGADGET
5
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
3D Printing the Future
Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life
The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects revealing how 3D printers inspire cre-
ativity and ground-breaking design
The stories wersquove uncovered focus on the future of industry medicine and whether 3D printing will change your
shopping experience For example
lighter more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts ndash from those
already used today to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpen-
ter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers
SOURCE
httpwwwsciencemuseumorguk
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
4
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
Ebola outbreak NHS volunteers fly to Sierra Leone
The first group of NHS volunteers have left for Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus
Around 30 GPs nurses psychiatrists and emer-gency medicine consultants left London Heathrow just after 1700 GMT bound for the West African country
They will train for a week in the capital Freetown before moving to treatment centres across the country
MORE AT BBC NEWS
EBOLA CONTINUES TO SPREAD
Mali New Ebola case confirmed 2 more
suspected
BAMAKO Mali (AP) mdash Mali on Saturday con-
firmed a new case of Ebola and said two more
suspected patients are being tested raising
concern about a further spread of the disease
which has already killed at least five people in
the country
PHILAE COMET LANDER SLEEPING
Philaersquos fate remains unknown as it snoozes underneath a cliff on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko But in the
last few days its ground crew has released a handful of updates that give us a better idea of what itrsquos gone
through since it left Rosetta for the comet as well as of its current state To start with the team has released
a 3D image of the cometrsquos surface (seen after the break) from two miles above the ground captured one hour
before the intrepid lander was supposed touch down Philae took the two photos of the original landing site two
minutes apart using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)
SOURCE ENGADGET
5
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
3D Printing the Future
Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life
The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects revealing how 3D printers inspire cre-
ativity and ground-breaking design
The stories wersquove uncovered focus on the future of industry medicine and whether 3D printing will change your
shopping experience For example
lighter more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts ndash from those
already used today to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpen-
ter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers
SOURCE
httpwwwsciencemuseumorguk
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
5
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
IN THE NEWSFROM THE NET
3D Printing the Future
Discover how innovators use 3D printers to turn computer data into physical objects that could change your life
The exhibition display includes an explosion of over 600 printed objects revealing how 3D printers inspire cre-
ativity and ground-breaking design
The stories wersquove uncovered focus on the future of industry medicine and whether 3D printing will change your
shopping experience For example
lighter more efficient plane parts that could save fuel on your flights replacement body parts ndash from those
already used today to the possible 3D printed organs of the future an open-source mechanical hand that carpen-
ter Richard Van As made on a consumer machine to replace his missing fingers
SOURCE
httpwwwsciencemuseumorguk
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
6
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
7
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
astro nerds free e-magazine
out monthly
whatrsquos in it
monthly guide to the night sky
readers images
tips
and much more
wwwicysciencecom
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
8
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Expansion or Collapse = The Inevitable Fate of Our UniversePart 1 ndash The Big Bangsrsquo continued Expansion
For years the make-up of the Universe has been one of the most hotly debated topics
in both the fields of astronomy and astrophysics How did it form What did it form
out of What makes it the way it is today Is there more out there that we canrsquot even
see During this series I will look at the evidence for the Big Bang the make-up of
the Universe and the role of Dark Energy in order to determine the inevitable fate of
our Universe
Today the Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the theory of the Universersquos begin-
ning However there are still areas of the theory that can only be explained by inferring
the idea of inflation There is evidence for inflation but there are a number of models
which could be used which give us different pictures of our Universe
Evidence for an expanding Universe was first discovered in 1929 by an American
astronomer Edwin Hubble His observations led him to realise that there was a con-
tinual increase with time in the amount of space that separated galaxies from one
another and from us here on Earth He also stated that this increase happened at a
rate which was proportional to the distance of the object from Earth Once he realised
that galaxies were moving away from us proportionally to their distance Hubble came
up with the Hubble diagram (Figure 1) and subsequent Hubble Law
Left The original Hubble diagram The relative velocity of galaxies (in kmsec) is plotted against distance to that galaxy (in parsecs a parsec is 326 light years) The slope of the line drawn through the points gives the rate of expansion of the universe (Wascko M 2003)
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
9
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
10
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Although this was the first piece of evidence the idea of an expanding Universe was conceived many years
before by a man called Christian Doppler
It is said that Doppler discovered that both sound and light waves appeared to alter depending on
whether they are moving toward you or away from you This is due to a change in frequency and wave-
length of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves This was first
tested for sound waves by Christopher Heinrich Dietrich Buys-Ballot in an experiment carried out in 1845
Ballot placed an orchestra of trumpets on an open car of a railroad train which was speeding through the
Dutch countryside He then noticed that as the train approached him the trumpets sounded to be playing
at a much higher frequency than when the train was heading away from them Doppler had suggested that
this was because a wave moving toward you will shorten which increases its frequency and a wave moving
away from you will lengthen doing the opposite This change in frequency would cause the sounds given
off to be different approaching you than they would moving away from you
Doppler believed that because the theory of wave-particle duality which is the idea that all objects
in the Universe exhibit properties of both waves and particles that light in wave form should undergo the
same effect as a sound wave He suggested that it was this effect that caused the variation in colour of stars
Doppler suggested that the light from stars that are moving away from us would be shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum and stars moving toward us would have a shorter wavelength making them appear
bluer
It was soon pointed out however that the now named Doppler Effect had nothing to do with the
actual colour of stars that all depended on the temperature and chemical composition of each individual
star and because ultra-violet light would be shifted into the visible part of the stars spectrum that there
would actually be no net effect on the colour of a star from it moving toward or away from us
Although the initial idea of the Doppler Effect was wrong it was still one of the most important
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
11
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
discoveries in Physics It was soon realised that although it wouldnrsquot affect the colour of a star it does affect
the spectral lines of a star that we can detect from Earth The effects of absorption and spectral line emis-
sion from a star were already known but in 1868 Sir William Huggins was able to demonstrate that these
spectral lines were actually shifted in some cases to the red end of the spectrum and in some cases to the
blue end compared with the lines given by the Sun This was interpreted as a Doppler shift and led Huggins
to suggest that stars were actually moving in relation to us and in most cases were moving away
Between 1919 and 1920 astronomers were using better and better telescopes to study various
nebulae and deep sky objects Vesto Slipher of the Lowell Observatory turned his telescope on the Andromeda
Nebula He noticed that the spectral lines given off were Doppler shifted to the blue end of the spectrum
He also noticed that various objects in the Virgo cluster appeared to be red shifted Although Slipher was
unsure of what these objects actually were he did know that whatever they were they were all moving
At the time astronomers estimated the size of the galaxy to be about 100 light years in diameter
but they also believed everything that they could see in the sky was part of the Milky Way Hubblersquos calcu-
lations showed that the Andromeda Galaxy is 900 light years away (we now know this figure to be even
larger) so it must be separate from our galaxy which meant that there could hundreds of galaxies through-
out the Universe
The first thought astronomers had was that the apparent red shift of these objects could be to do
with the relative movement of our Solar System but this theory was abandoned as more distant galaxies
appeared to be moving even faster In 1929 a new idea emerged Hubble announced that the red shift of a
galaxy seemed to be proportional to its distance from us and so if you extrapolated this back to the dawn
of the Universe then the Universe appeared to be expanding This relationship became known as Hubblersquos
Law which states that the redshift and therefore the velocity a galaxy is moving from us is equal to its dis-
tance if the expansion rate of the Universe is added This constant is now known as the Hubble constant (H)
and although initially measured by Hubble at 500 kmsMpc the value is now accepted to be much lower
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
12
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Twitter dan__lucasScience blogger
at around 77 kmsMpc with an uncertainty of around 15 as others that
have worked on the problem have since discovered
It is so difficult to get an accurate measurement for the Hubble constant for two
reasons The first is that galaxies interact with one another and cause altera-
tions in their velocity as the gravitational effects can alter a galaxies direction
The second is establishing accurate distance measurements Although mea-
suring the distance to a nearby Cepheid Variable is the most accurate way it
still has its problems
All this evidence has shown us that our Universe is expanding but it also creates
another problem What is the fate of the Universe Will things just expand
so much that the Universe will become cold and dark and just die or will the
expansion eventually slow down and the Universe collapse in on itself The
answers to these questions all depend on the amount of matter in the Universe
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
13
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Christian Andreas Doppler (ˈdɒplər 29 November 1803 ndash 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist He is celebrated for his principle mdash known as the Doppler effect mdash that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
14
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
15
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Symmetrical Asymmetry - A Universe from Nothingness
he Universe started from extreme likely perfect order at the pre-Big Bang singularity then
entropy increased to the disorder we see today
We need to explain how this could arise from perfection
Stephen Hawking explained the problem in a documentary - (I canrsquot find the video but will
add to comments below if I do) Essentially he showed equally spaced points that must have
spontaneously lost their order to create the structures we observe in todayrsquos Universe
Close packing of spheres can describe any point surrounded equidistantly by 12 other points
This is a mathematically proven rule of the spatially 3-dimensional Universe in which we live
The tightest density of a Universe with space existing (ie after the Big Bang occurred) is this
configuration
We already know that Close packing has a density of around 074 and the remarkable fact
is that two basic configurations give the exact same value Ie Cubic and Hexagonal Close
Packing
We know the Universe fluctuated from a single point to massive numbers perhaps an infi-
nite number of points with a maximum of 12 equal other points immediately around them ndash
never any more than 12
But which of the two configurations would pop into existence first Both In fact necessarily
it wouldnrsquot be in balance unless
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
16
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Regular arrangement of equal spheres in a plane changing to an irregular
arrangement of unequal spheres (bubbles)
helliphellipthe Universe Quantum Fluctuated from the perfect and single configuration of a sole point into the
Close Packing configuration with an infinite number of layers of the two types of packing
Like Pi with its infinite combination of digits with its decimal places any spatial symmetry andor asymmetry
would occur at once For
example with Pi your
telephone number will
occur an infinite number
of times if you take Pi to
enough places Thus all
single points being equiv-
alent to each other and
precisely the same locally
to themselves but as
space-time expands
they observe the subtle
and increasing differ-
ences around them This
also allows large scale
homogeneity
The Universe would
exist as a natural equiv-
alent of nothingness
where entropy increases
naturally
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
17
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
A Universe like this would allow the starting point Hawking envisaged with identical local points but with
very subtle differences at each place Initially each point would look one of two ways but as time passed
each point would become more and more unique
This would satisfy all the heterogeneity necessary within our Universe and a Multiverse system would be
likely too
ARTICLE
ANT RYAN
httpantryanetblogspotcouk
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
18
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Life on Mars By Nicole Willetthttpwwwmarssocietyorg
Throughout history humans have looked at Mars in wonder and have made up myths legends and science fiction
stories about civilizations When Mariner flew by Mars in 1965 hopes for finding a thriving civilization on the Red
Planet were quickly dashed by the 22 postage stamp sized images that slowly trickled back to Earth The images
showed a barren rocky terrain For many though their passion of finding out more details kept the interest in
finding life on Mars alive In 1976 a life detecting experiment invented by Dr Gil Levin was sent on the Viking I and
II Landers to investigate whether microbial life existed in the soil on Mars Levin named his experiment Gulliver but
it was renamed by NASA to the Labeled Release (LR) experiment Viking I and Viking II which were 4000 miles
away from each other both carried the LR A brief summary of the LR is as follows first a sample of Martian soil
is scooped up and sent into a small tube then a squirt of nutrient radioactive 14C is added to the soil sample and
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
19
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
if microorganisms are present they will consume the nutrient and then give off radioactive gas When the LR
was performed on the surface of Mars the first scoop of nutrient was added to the soil and a spike was seen
on the graph indicating a positive result for life The gas that was released by this experiment persisted for the
entire seven days it was run In order to verify the results a control experiment had been designed by NASA The
control was designed to determine whether the result was chemical or biological The control had a negative
result Chemistry cannot ldquodierdquo from an experiment but biology can Since the control came back negative and
the LR was positive then it can be ascertained that there is life on Mars The LR detected life on Mars according
to the criteria set by the Viking team at NASA Viking I and II both had a positive result for life with the LR exper-
iment Several different life detecting experiments were in the payload of Viking Each one had varying degrees
of sensitivity The LR was the only test that was positive for life but it was much more sensitive than the others
The sensitivity of the LR was able to detect 11 x 106 cells in the soil while the others were orders of magnitude
less sensitive which easily explains why they were negative versus the positive results of the LR
The Gas Exchange (GEX) and the Pyrolytic Release Experiment (PR) failed to detect life in the soils of Mars So
NASA made a consensus that there was no life on the Red Planet However science does not work by consensus
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
20
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
Science is supposed to review the results and retest them That is
the scientific method every third grader in America learns Scientists
must retest their experiment to get accurate results If one out of
three tests is positive then you must rerun the experiment to get
an accurate result What scientists should not do is stop sending life
detection experiments to Mars because of their ambiguous results
NASA has refused to send any other true life detection experiments
to Mars since then That is not science Each time Levin has pro-
posed a new life detection experiment to go to Mars he has been
denied NASA keeps stating that they are looking for biosignatures
If we had the technology to search for life on Mars in 1976 what is
stopping us from looking for life on Mars now We have learned so
much more about the Red Planet since then it should be a slam dunk
to send a life detection device to Mars Each successive mission to
Mars has discovered that Mars definitely has two things rocks and
water The Viking missions (1976) the Pathfinder and Sojourner
Rover (1997) Spirit (2004-2010) and Opportunity Rovers (2004-cur-
rently operational) Phoenix Lander (2008) and Curiosity (2012-cur-
rently operational) have all confirmed many times over that there are
water and rocks on Mars This has taken nearly 40 years to accom-
plish even though we acquired that information with the Viking mis-
sions The next rover with a working name of Mars 2020 is to be
very similar to Curiosity with the addition of a cache to store rock
samples in This cache will be stored on Mars until a later date when
another rover or humans (as a NASA scientists stated tongue and
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
21
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
cheek) will launch it back to Earth as a sample return for further study
According to MIT planetary scientist Dr Ben Weiss about one ton per
year of Martian meteorites fall to Earth which over time equals bil-
lions of tons of rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth He states as do
others ldquoIt is possible we are Martiansrdquo Since that is the case what is
the purpose of sending another rover very similar to Curiosity to Mars to
store a cache of rocks on the surface for an unknown amount of time
This is a perplexing set of facts So many issues arise with this plan Such
as contamination upon reentry time of the cache sitting on the surface
of Mars and lack of foresight and appropriate planning According to
Dr Robert Zubrin President of the Mars Society we get samples of
rocks from Mars all the time We have many meteorites from Mars in
labs being studied currently The mission that should be funded is the
Icebreaker Life mission This mission will have a one meter long drill that
will peer below the surface of Mars specifically searching for conclusive
evidence of life (see blog 21 for more details) In an email from Dr Chris
McKay he stated ldquoWe are currently working on the Icebreaker mission
and we will be proposing it to the current round of Discovery missions
We expect proposals due Dec 2014 We will aim for a 2018 launchrdquo This
is a much more reasonable plan and should have been funded years ago
Since the controversial Viking results many scientific journal articles have
been published supporting the results while others have attempted to
discredit them Many new experiments have been developed that have
supported the LR positive results At this point it may be a matter of
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
22
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
what you choose to believe regarding the LR results However science is true whether or not you believe it
I believe there is life on Mars All of the necessary ingredients are on Mars for life to exist Mars has ample
amounts of water minerals and other chemical nutrients in the soil Habitability has been established and
reestablished The question is ldquoDo we want to find life on Marsrdquo It depends who you ask
Gillevincom
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
23
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
NASA
astrobionet
Gillevincom
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
24
I C Y S C I E N C E | Q T R 4 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4