The Moon

Hello readers! I was recently reading an article about a meteorite that smashed into the moon in the largest lunar impact ever recorded. The rock, travelling at 61, 000 kilometres per hour punched into the moon, causing a crater 40 metres wide and produced a flash that astronomers captured - the force was so great that the flash produced could be seen from Earth with the naked eye. The meterorite hit an ancient, lava-filled basin called the Mare Nubium, and the flash was so intense that it took more than eight seconds to fade. With that interesting fact in mind, it leads me to my post: the moon!

              

Facts about the Moon:

• The Moon is also called the Luna
• It is the Earth's only natural satellite, formed 4.6 billion years ago around 30-50 million years after the formation of the solar system. 
• It is in synchronous rotation with Earth - the same side is always facing Earth
• The first unmanned mission to the moon occurred in 1959 by the Soviet Lunar Program, the first manned landing was Apollo 11 in 1969 
• Its average distance from Earth is 384, 400 km, its length of orbit 27.3 Earth days and its surface temperature is -233 to 123 Celsius. 
• The dark side of the moon is a myth - in reality, both sides of the Moon see the same amount of Sun, however, only one side of the Moon is ever seen from Earth because the Moon rotates around its own axis at the same time it takes to orbit the Earth - the same side is always facing Earth. So the side we see is always lit up by reflected sunlight, and the side that faces away from Earth lies in darkness and can only be seen by the human eye from a spacecraft.
• The rise and fall of tides on Earth is caused by the Moon - this is due to the gravitational pull the Moon exerts, one is on the one side that which faces the Moon and the other one is on the opposite side which then faces away from the Moon - these are known as two bulges in the Earth which move around the oceans as the Earth rotates which causes high and low tides around the globe.
• The Moon is drifting away from the Earth - it will continue to do so for around 50 billion years and by the time that happens, the Moon will take around 47 days to orbit the Earth instead of 27.3 days
• A person weights much less on the Moon - it has a weaker gravity due to its smaller mass
• The Moon has only be waked on by 12 people and they have all been American males - now, only unmanned vehicles visit the Moon 
• The Moon has no atmosphere - its surface is unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites and solar winds and has huge temperature variations. No sound can be heard on the Moon, and the sky always appears black
• The Moon has quakes, caused by the gravitational pull of the Earth. They are called moonquakes (surprisingly enough)
• Scientists think the Moon has a molten core like Earth
• The first spacecraft that ever reached the Moon was Luna 1 in 1959, launched from the USSR, which passed within 5995 km of the surface of the Moon  
• The Moon is the fifth largest natural satellite in the Solar System.
• There is a theory that the Moon was once part of the Earth and was formed from a chunk that broke away due to a huge object colliding with Earth when it was young
• The Moon will be visited by man (hopefully, including WOman in the future) as a permanent space station will be set up in 2019
• During the 1950s, USA considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon, a secret project known as 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights', which was proposed to be a show of strength during the space race with the USSR.
• There are four kinds of lunar months: anomalistic, nodical, sidereal and synodical 
• We see slightly more than half of the Moon from Earth as it rocks in the east and west direction which allows us to see farther around in longitude at each edge
• It would take hundreds of thousands of moons to equal to brightness of the sun
• The Earth, when seen from the moon, also goes through phases, however, they are opposite to the lunar phases, so its full Earth when its new moon for us, last-quarter Earth when its first-quarter moon, crescent Earth then we see gibbous moon, and so on. Also, eclipses are reversed when viewing the moon
• The moon has its own time zone - Franklin developed a system he called 'lunar mean solar time' or Lunar Time.

Moon phases

What is the Moon made of?

Its surface shows plenty of evidence of asteroids, and also consists of overlapping craters and craters on top of lava flows. The crust of the moon is made up of concrete-like regolith. Its crust is about 38 to 63 miles thick. Like the Earth, the moon consists of a crust, mantle and core. Deep insides its interior, the moon has a solid iron core surrounded by a molten liquid iron outer core. Most of the interior of the moon is made up of the lithosphere, and as this region melted early in the moon's life, it supplied the magma necessary to create lava plains on the surface. Over time, the magma cooled and solidified, ended volcanism on the moon. The moon has the second-densest body in the solar system, beaten by Jupiter's moon, Io. 

Thanks for reading!

The Ukraine Protests Continued

Ukraine Protests Continued

Hello readers! On reading about Ukraine and its recent events, I’ve decided to compile my next post as a continuation from my previous one on Ukraine, detailing all the events up to its most recent occurrences.

In summary of what has been occurring previously that I outlined in my past post and updating it to where we are now: there has been a series of events that led to fighting between police and campaigners in November 2013 after the government announced deals with Russia, which signalled a move away from Europe. This later culminated in the most violent clashes in February which began after reports that a policeman had been shot.

By the 20th February, officials stated that 77 people died because of these clashes. In an attempt to end the violence, President Yanukovych and his government agreed to a coalition with the leaders of the opposition, and offered some new terms. However, But the anti-government groups did not think this was enough, and the campaigners reacted by taking control of more government buildings, demanding that an election be held in May. So after, President Yanukovych fled Kiev after this government voted to remove him from power. Olexander Turchynov has now been named as the temporary president and a new government will be put in place until the election, which is set for 25 May.

What started these protests was when President Viktor Yanukovych announced his decision to pull out a treaty with the EU, an agreement that suggested a paving the way for Ukraine to join the union. The decision to pull out was a U-turn action that disappointed many Ukrainians. Instead, the President announced a bailout from Russia that would have created closer ties, whereas protesters believed that being aligned with the EU would benefit ordinary people, and that Yanukovych only represents the interests of the rich. As a result, the protests in Kiev became a symbol of the protestors opposition against the President’s decision and they called for an early election.

However, Yanukovych introduced new anti-protest laws in order to end the demonstrations. These laws banned protests from taking place without the government’s permission and threatened those who disobeyed with up to ten years in prison. It also introduced fines for wearing masks or helmets to demonstrations and also driving bans for convoys of more than five cars. Additionally, internet media outlets have to register with authorities and no amplifiers are allowed in public places. This act of aggression against people’s right to free speech became fuel for fire; it generated the protest movement to turn further from a pro-EU movement towards anti-government feeling and became a cause for fighting against the corruption of government. Demonstrators demanded the resignation of Prime Minister and Interior Minister, and most importantly, the resignation of the President.

Two activists were killed by gunshot wounds, but officers deny responsibility. A third activist was then found dead in a forest outside Kiev; his body showed signs of torture. A 17-year-old student also told the BBC he was stripped naked by police, beaten, injured by knives and eventually taken to hospital.

With fears that the riots could spread beyond Kiev, and with protesters reportedly storming and taking control of government buildings, the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned Mr Yanukovych that the  European Union may take action if he doesn’t end his crackdown on protesters. President Yanukovych then called an emergency session of parliament next week to discuss the protests.

The result, however, was the collapse of Ukraine’s government which all came about from the protests outcry against official corruption and their use of police violence. After the months of protests, and the raising death toll, Mr Yanukovych eventually left the capital and fled while protesters took control of the city centre. Ukraine’s parliament voted to remove Mr Yanukovych and set new presidential elections for May 25. Ukraine opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and vowed to remain in power. She was the leader of the Orange Revolution that thwarted Mr Yanukovych’s first run at the presidency and was later imprisoned 2011 for allegedly ordering a subordinate to sign a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009, which prosecutors said led to huge losses for Ukraine. She denied any wrongdoing.

What is now at stake?

For Russia, it is critical that Ukraine, a country of 46 million, becomes a clear political ally as a part of Putin’s quest integrate and regain influence over ex-Soviet states. On the other hand, Ukraine has been an important target for an EU program aimed at encouraging democratic change in the region in return for free-trade agreements. Furthermore, Ukraine occupies a number of key pipelines that funnel Russian natural gas to Europe. Russian state-owned gas company meets around a quarter of the EU’s gas needs, the bulk of which flows via Ukraine. As well as that, Ukraine also receives a lot of its natural-gas supplies from Russia. Ukrainian officials have blamed Moscow, arguing that it has been using its control over gas pipelines which has made Ukraine into a political bargaining chip.

What happens now?

Currently, Parliament has now voted in favour of trying Mr Yanukovych at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The now ex-president has been accused of being behind the deaths of more than 100 protesters at the hands of the police; many of them were shot by snipers. In the ICC, cases can be sent by the UN Security Council, where the ICC prosecutor can then launch an investigation. It is known as a court of last resort, which handles genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the moment, the ex-President has been missing, reportedly last seen in Balaklava and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. Russia’s stance on this is that they are opposed to the changes in Ukraine, seen from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev statement describing the people behind the new administration an "armed mutiny". However, it has been stated that Russia's "policy of non-intervention" would continue.

The Workings of Bees

Hello readers! I think we've all heard about how bees are starting to decrease. Recently, I read an article on BBC News, about the bumblebee being infected with honeybee diseases, where its pathogens are capable of infecting adult bumblebees. Bees haven't had good luck over the years as during the last few decades, many species have suffered deep declines, for instance, the speicies Bombus cullumanus bumblebee have gone extinct. This may be due to the destruction of their habitats, particularly wildflower meadows, but also due to diseases. While I am one to usually run away from bees, especially the alarming huge bumblebees, and was first stung by a bumblebee at three years old, it is saddening to hear about their decline. And what of the honey? Delicious honey...

Moving on, this post is therefore a dedication to bees!

 

Facts about the bumblebee:

They live in small nests and they do not swarm. The queen will spend her entire life in the nest and will start the nest when she is ready to lay eggs. She produces worker bees first to collect pollen

Bees drink nectar from flowers and juices from fruit. Bees only produce enough honey to feed the younger bumblebees which is stored in honey pots

Bees are about three quarters of an inch in length, have four wings, a stinger at the end of their abdomen and usually yellow and black striped. They appear to be furry compared to other bees, they are bigger than a honey bee but much less aggressive and will only attack when they feel threatened

Each spring, the queen bee builds a nest out a wax. She already has eggs when she builds the nest. She will first deposit an egg in each cell and pollen for food, and then seals up the cells. Bumblebees hatch, they go through the larva and pupa stages, and develop into adult worker bees, and they cut their way out of the wax cell. This process takes about 21 days.

The flight of the bumblebee has proven to be scientifically astounding when discovered that the insect can fly high enough to pass Mount Everest. The Chinese bumblebee is still capable of flight when the air pressure falls to a level equivalent to an altitude of 9,000 metres. This air pressure would suffocate most other animals. They continue to fly by altering the angle of their wings to increase their amplitude as they fly back and forth. 

Bumblebee Life Cycle:

The queen emerges in spring, and searches for a suitable nest site where in this space, she builds a ball of moss, hair, or grass, with a single entrance. Once this is constructed, the queen prepares for her offspring.

She builds a wax honey pot, and provisions it with nectar and pollen. She then collects pollen and forms it into a mound on the floor of her nest. It is only after that, she beings to lays eggs in the pollen, and coats it with wax secreted from her body.

The queen uses the warmth of her body to incubate her eggs by sitting on the pollen mound. For nourishment, she consumes honey from her wax pot, which is positioned within her reach. In four days, the eggs hatch.

The bumblebee queen will forage pollen and feed her offspring until they pupate. Only when this first brood emerges as bumblebee adults can she quit the daily tasks of foraging and housekeeping.

For the remainder of the year, the queen concentrates her efforts on laying eggs. Workers help incubate her eggs, and the colony swells in number. At the end of summer, she begins laying some unfertilized eggs, which become males. The bumblebee queen allows some of her female offspring to become new, fertile queens. With new queens ready to continue the genetic line, the bumblebee queen dies, her work complete.

With the approach of winter approaches, new queens and males mate and the males die soon after mating. New generations of bumblebee queens seek shelter for the winter, and wait until the following spring to begin new colonies.

Thanks for reading!

Rainbows

Hello readers! So yesterday, I thought that I would risk a quick trip to Asda on foot and also to drop off some recycling at their recycling point. But as luck would have it, it poured rain pretty much from the moment I closed the door to when I got to Asda. I also chosen that time to not bring an umbrella out of my sheer hubris thinking I will not need one and I don't wear hoods because...well it messes up my hair. Regardless, the rain made sure it got messed up. But on the way back, when sunlight streamed through the dark clouds, and lit up the wet pavement in little sparkles, I looked around and there was a lovely curving rainbow, streaming colours from the pavement all the way up over the sky. Nature is so cool! I just wish it didn't have to ruin my hair. So this little story moves me into my next post which is about rainbows!



What are they?

A rainbow is an is an optical and meteorological phenomenon caused by both reflection and refraction of light in water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun. A primary rainbow's arc  shows red on the outer part and violet on the inner side. This is caused by light being refracted (bent) when entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it. However, in a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colours reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets.

How are they formed?

To understand the formation of rainbows, you also have to understand the formation of light. Light is made up of a collection of many colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A prism can take in white light on one side and produce its own mini-rainbow on the other side. A prism is a triangular piece of glass or plastic. To get it to produce a mini-rainbow, you allow a narrow strip of white light to fall on one face of the triangle. This dispersion of colors in a prism occurs because of the refractive index of the glass. So when light enters a material, the difference in the refractive index of air and glass causes the light to bend. The angle of bending is different for different wavelengths of light. When white light moves through the two faces of the prism, the different colors bend different amounts and in doing so spread out into a rainbow.

In a rainbow, raindrops in the air act as tiny prisms. Light enters the raindrop, reflects off of the side of the drop and exits it. So in this process, it is broken into a spectrum just like it is in a triangular glass prism. 

The angle between the ray of light coming in and the ray coming out of the drops is 42 degrees for red and 40 degrees for violet. From this angle, it causes different colours from different drops to reach your eye, which forms a circular rim of colours in the sky which is what we know as a rainbow. In a double rainbow, on the other hand, the second bow is produced because droplets can have two reflections internally and get the same effect. The droplets have to be the right size to get two reflections to work.

Thanks for reading!

Planet home: Earth

Hello readers! I was just brushing up on my knowledge on this world that we currently reside on, and figured that I would dedicate a post to all the things I've learnt about Earth!

                              

Cool facts about the Earth:

• The Earth's rotation is gradually slowing. This has the effect of lengthening our days but it happens so slowly that it could be as much as 140 million years before the length of a day will increase to 25 hours
• The Earth was once believed to be the centre of the universe, eventually, the view that the Sun was at the centre on the universe was postulated by Copernicus and eventually was shown to be the case
• Earth has a powerful magnetic field, caused by the nickel-iron core of the planet coupled with its rapid rotation. This field protects the Earth from the effects of solar wind
• There is only one natural satellite of the planet Earth - the Moon!
• Earth is the only planet not named after a god; the other seven planets in our solar system are all named after Roman gods or goddesses. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were named during ancient times as they were visible to the naked eye and the Roman method of naming planets was retained after the discovery of Uranus and Neptune.
• The Earth has the greatest density of all the planets in our solar system  
• Many layers of atmosphere coat our planet including the mesosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, and the thermosphere, but it’s the troposphere, closest to the planet itself, that supports our lives and is, in fact, the thinnest at only about 10 miles high.
• Most of the Earth’s deserts are not composed entirely of sand. About 85% of them, are rocks and gravel. The largest, the Sahara, fills about 1/3 of Africa
• The Earth is, in fact, not really round. It is called an oblate spheroid meaning it’s slightly flattened on the top and bottom poles.

What is the Earth made of?

The Earth has multiple layers. The ocean basins and the continents compose the crust which is the outermost layer. Earth's crust is between three and 46 miles (deep. The thickest parts are under the continents and the thinnest parts are under the oceans.

• The crust: it is made up of several elements: iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, sulfur, nickel, and trace amounts of calcium, aluminium and other elements. It is divided into huge plates that float on the mantle, the next layer. The plates are constantly in motion. Mountains form when the plates collide and deep trenches form when one plate slides under another plate. Plate tectonics is the theory explaining the motion of these plates.
• Mantle: it is under the crust and about 1,800 miles deep. It is composed mostly of silicate rocks made up of magnesium and iron. Intense heat causes the rocks to rise. They then cool and sink back down to the core. This convection is believed to be what causes the tectonic plates to move. When the mantle pushes through the crust, volcanoes erupt.
• the core: at the centre of the Earth, it is made up of two parts. There is a solid, inner core of iron which has a radius of about 760 miles and is surrounded by a liquid, outer core composed of a nickel-iron alloy. The inner core spins at a different speed than the rest of the planet and it is this which is thought to cause Earth's magnetic field. 

Thanks for reading!

Incoming Asteroid

Hello readers! I was reading today a piece titled 'Asteroid 2000 EM26: 'potentially hazardous' space rock to fly close to Earth' (I mean, come on, that's a pretty catchy title, how could I not - even though I know nothing about asteroids) and so, this asteroid, the size of three football fields, will be passing Earth uncomfortably close on Tuesday, passing by Earth only 2.1 miles away. Reading on, this space rock is known as 2000 EM26 and will pass the Earth at just under nine times the distance to the moon so doesn't quite sound as alarming. So, knowing very little about asteroids, I am going to rectify that in this post!

What is it?
 
So it's time to narrow down the definitions through names:
Meteors: they are just bits of dust or rocks from space that get sucked into the Earth's gravitational pull when they come to close to it. When they enter our atmosphere and start to plummet towards the ground, they begin to burn up usually about 60 miles before they get close enough to hit the ground. When the meteors burn up, we on the ground can sometimes see the brief flash of light. This is what people call "shooting stars." Usually, the "space dust" that make meteors comes from the tails of passing comets. Every once in a while, a meteor will be big enough to weather its fiery descent and it will land on Earth, where it earns the title "meteorite."
Asteroids: on the other hand, are also known as "minor planets." They are made up of the same substances as planets, but they at a much smaller scale. Most asteroids orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Although some asteroids have sizes comparable to some moons in our solar system, these are not moons because they only orbit the Sun, and not any planets, as the moons do. The largest asteroids are called planetoids.
They differ from comets in that comets are made from ice, like that of dusty snowballs which orbit the Sun. They are made up of ices such as water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane mixed with dust. These materials came from the time when the Solar System was formed.Comets have an icy nucleus surrounded by a large cloud of gas and dust called the coma. The coma is created as the ice in the nucleus is warmed by the Sun and vaporizes. Comets can develop two tails as they travel closer to the Sun: a straight gas tail and a curved dust tail. The gas tail is created by the solar wind, pushing gas away from the comet's coma and pointing straight back from the Sun. 
Asteroid belt: so scattered in orbits around the sun are the start-like planetoids/asteroids bits and they orbit between Mars and Jupiter in a grouping known as the Main Asteroid Belt. The Main Asteroid Belt is more than two-and-a-half times as far as Earth does from the sun. It contains billions,and maybe even trillions of asteroids. Most of these are relatively small. The origin of the belt came during the early life of the solar system, where dust and rock circled the sun and was pulled together by gravity into planets. Jupiter, the largest planet, kept a number of the pieces from coalescing into another planet. Instead, its gravity disrupted the formation process, leaving an array of unattached asteroids.

Some asteroids are large, solid bodies and there are some more than 16 in the belt with a diameter greater than 150 miles. The larges asteroids, Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea, are 250 miles long and bigger. That region also contains the dwarf planet, Ceres. It is considered too small to be a full-fledged planet but makes up approximately a third of the mass of the asteroid belt. 

Thanks for reading!

Climate Change

Hello readers! Now there has been a lot of crazy weather going on in the UK recently; the floods are immense and really nothing I've seen before, for others, perhaps they remember in the past dire storms and flooding such as these recent ones, but for us young-uns this a completely new thing that's happening. And remember last year? All that great, lovely, white snow. I have great memories of fat snowman and snowfights and how I had to keep going back to my room to thaw out my hands, and then going back out...fun times. But there is no snow this year! What gives? Can this all be to do with the greatly feared...climate change? Well, I don't know, and I'm no scientist so I can't - and neither can they for that matter - give a definite answer but I can give an informative on climate change.

What is it?

Met Office describes climate change as a large-scale, long-term shift in the planet's weather patterns or average temperatures. Earth has had tropical climates and ice ages many times in its 4.5 billion years. Nowadays, Since the last ice age, which ended about 11,000 years ago, Earth's climate has been relatively stable at about 14 °C. However, in recent years, the average temperature has been increasing. And from the WWF website, they note that as the planet heats, climate patterns change, with more extreme and unpredictable weather across the world – many places will be hotter, some colder. Some wetter, others drier. The planet so far has warmed by an average of nearly 1ºC in the past century. For the poor UK, this means a hell of a lot of flooding. 

What causes global warming?

The thing about global warming is that it is mainly due to a very problematic gas that there is too much of: carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide acts as a blanket, trapping heat and warming the planet. As we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas for energy or cut down and burn forests to create pastures and plantations, carbon accumulates and overloads our atmosphere. Certain waste management and agricultural practices aggravate the problem by releasing other potent global warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide. CO2 survives in the atmosphere for a long time—up to many centuries—so its heat-trapping effects are compounded over time. Of the many heat-trapping gases, CO2 puts us at the greatest risk of irreversible changes if it continues to accumulate unabated in the atmosphere which it is likely to do if the global economy remains dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs. Additionally, there is more than one greenhouse gas. Different greenhouse gases have very different heat-trapping abilities. Some of them can even trap more heat than CO2. A molecule of methane produces more than 20 times the warming of a molecule of CO2. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful than CO2. Other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons (which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer), have heat-trapping potential thousands of times greater than CO2. But because their concentrations are much lower than CO2, none of these gases adds as much warmth to the atmosphere as CO2 does.

Let's bring out the diagrams and pictures: 

The best way to understand global warming is through the process of the greenhouse effect. Now this is natural process. It refers to circumstances where shorter wavelengths of visible light from the sun passes through a transparent medium and are absorbed, but the longer wavelengths of the infrared re-radiation from the heated objects are unable to pass through that medium. This trapping of the long wavelength radiation leads to more heating and as a result, a higher temperature. So the Earth gets energy from the sun in the form of sunlight. The Earth's surface absorbs some of this energy and heats up and it cools down by giving off a different form of energy, called infrared radiation. But before all this radiation can escape to outer space, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb some of it, which makes the atmosphere warmer. As the atmosphere gets warmer, it makes the Earth's surface warmer, too.

Here is the diagram of this process:

Consequences of climate change:

Climate change can have devastating consequences. Already, around the globe, life is being transformed; seasons are shifting, temperatures are climbing and sea levels are rising. We already know about the polar ice caps melting, which may eventually lead to the loss of wildlife such as polar bears. Other consequences are: higher temperatures in countries, changing landscapes, rising sea levels, increased risk of drought, fire and floods, storms and storm damage as a result, loss of species and species travelling to other places in the world that can be of consequence to the population e.g. the mosquito travelling to Britain and plaguing us with malaria - it can happen!

Cheerful thoughts. Anywho, so that's our future. Some argue that it's not but there are significant facts out there now that is prevailing over thoughts against believing in climate change. Hope this has been informative and as always, thanks for reading

The Sun (or lack of it)

Hello readers! This blog post today will try to answer one of those crazy science questions which one may randomly ponder on when lying back and squinting upwards at the bright sky (or dark grey sky depending on where you live) which is: what would happen if there was no sun? 



Ah the sun. It gave me a really bad sunburn when I went on holiday, so bad that both my ankles swelled, it hurt to walk, move, or breathe, and I only really walked when I wanted to wander towards the buffet. So I have learnt the hard way that the sun is something that should be respected, perhaps even feared. 


Following the diagram above to give an idea of what the sun is made up of, what we can't see here is that the sun is made up of different elements including hydrogen, helium, and the remainder is oxygen, silicon, chromium, calcium, magnesium, nickel and carbon. Being this big ball of gases, these gases are converted into energy in the sun's core. The energy moves outward through the interior layers into the sun's atmosphere and is released into the solar system as heat and light. Nuclear fusion converts hydrogen into other elements. What occurs is that these elements are created in the sun's core, which makes up 25 percent of the sun. Gravitational forces create tremendous pressure and temperatures in the core. The temperature of the sun in this layer is about 27 million degrees and hydrogen atoms are compressed and fuse together, creating helium and a lot of energy. 

The energy, in the form of gamma-ray photons and neutrinos, is carried into the radiative zone where photons can bounce around in this zone for about a million years before passing through the interface layer, or tachocline. 

The convection zone is the outermost layer of the sun's interior where temperatures cool in this zone. This causes heavier ions such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, calcium and iron to hold onto their electrons which makes the material more opaque and traps heat, causing the plasma to boil or 'convect'.  The convective motions carry heat quite rapidly to the surface, which is the bottom layer of the sun's atmosphere, or photosphere. At this layer, energy is released as sunlight. The light passes through the outer layers of the sun's atmosphere — the chromosphere and the corona — before reaching Earth eight minutes later.

So what would happen if the Sun wasn't there?

Spaceanswers state that it is a question that can only be looked at hypothetically from the perspective of the motion of bodies in the Solar System. So anything in orbit around the Sun is basically moving fast enough to be in a constant state of freefall towards it. If the planets, for example, suddenly stopped moving they would immediately be pulled towards the Sun and fall into it.

So if the Sun disappeared all the planets, asteroids, comets and whatever else would retain their forward motion and consequently, they would fly off in a straight line into space.Some planets might gravitationally interact with one another, especially as the inner planets are moving faster than the outer planets and would potentially ‘catch up’ to them. Otherwise, the likelihood is all the objects would continue to move in a straight line through space out of the Solar System, and it would be many thousands of years before they came into the vicinity of another system or object.

On Earth, as our planet retains heat rather well, we wouldn’t freeze to death instantly. Also, as light from the Sun takes eight and a half minutes to reach us, there would still be some sunshine before the planet is plunged into darkness.Those on the night side wouldn’t notice much difference until, a few seconds after people on the other side of  Earth are plunged into darkness, the Moon would suddenly disappear as it no longer had the Sun’s light to reflect. The planets in the sky would follow suit, disappearing one by one.Eventually, the lack of the Sun’s radiation would leave us cold. Within days, the world would be a hundred or so degrees below freezing, and within weeks it’d be just 50 or so degrees above absolute zero. The atmosphere itself would also freeze and fall to Earth, leaving us exposed to the harsh radiation travelling through space. 

Some microorganisms would be able to survive due to heat from the core and for humans, nuclear fusion reactors would be a necessity to survive a little longer. 

So, if you ever were wondering the answer to this question, there's the answer! And if you want to write an end-of-the-world novel or script on the end of Earth due to the death of Sun, there's the (hypothetical) facts on what will happen. Thanks for reading!

The Criminal Cold

Hello readers! Anyone liking the alliterative title? Yes? No? Too cheesy? Probably. Anywho I have come down with a pretty bad one of those bad boys, so while I sniff menthol tissues as though it were my lifeline, I'll be writing up on what these monsters are and why we get them!



The Common Cold

• It is a mild infection of the nose, throat, sinuses, and upper airways. It can cause a blocked nose, followed by a runny nose, sneezing, sore throat and a cough
• Colds are caused by viruses which attack the lining of the nose and throat, inflaming these areas. As they become inflamed, they begin to produce more mucus, resulting in a runny nose and sneezing. The viruses most responsible for colds belong to one of two groups, rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Because a number of viruses can cause a cold, it's possible to have several colds, one after the other, as each one is caused by a different virus
• A cold can be spread through direct contact where if you sneeze or cough, tiny droplets of fluid containing the cold virus are launched into the air and can be breathed in by others and by indirect contact where if you sneeze and cough on an object, someone else can touch that object and may catch the cold virus if they then touch their mouth and nose
• To understand how the cold works, I'll turn to describing first how a virus works in general. They are tiny organisms, 100 times smaller than a single bacterial cell. Viruses themselves are not alive; they cannot grow or multiply on their own by they need to enter a human or animal cell and take over the cell to help them multiply. These viruses may also infect bacterial cells. The virus attacks the cell and and take over it to carry out their own life processes of multiplication and growth. The infected cell will produce viral particles are a result. 
• Viruses are not just taken into cells as they must first attach to a receptor on the cell surface. Each virus has its specific receptor, usually a vital component of the cell surface. It is the distribution of these receptor molecules on host cells that determines the cell-preference of viruses. For example, the cold and flu virus prefers the mucus lining cells of the lungs and the airways. Viruses can enter the body from the environment or other individuals from soil to water to air via nose, mouth, or any breaks in the skin and seek a cell to infect. A cold or flu virus for example will target cells that line the respiratory (i.e. the lungs) or digestive (i.e. the stomach) tracts.
• The structure of a virus has three main parts: nucleic acid (the core of the virus with the DNA or RNA which holds all of the information for the virus and that makes it unique and helps it multiply, the protein coat (capsid, the covering over the nucleic acid that protects it) and the lipid membrane (envelope, which covers the capsid, and many viruses do not have this envelope and are called naked viruses.)
• Life cycle of a basic virus:

These steps are called the lytic cycle. These include:

1. A virus particle attaches to a host cell. This is called the process of adsorption
2. The particle injects its DNA or RNA into the host cell called entry.
3. The invading DNA or RNA takes over the cell and recruits the host’s enzymes
4. The cellular enzymes start making new virus particles called replication
5. The particles of the virus created by the cell come together to form new viruses. This is called assembly
6. The newly formed viruses kill the cell so that they may break free and search for a new host cell. This is called release

Thanks for reading!

The Mosquito Nazi

Hello readers! Today, I was reading a pretty weird article in the guardian about how in the past, the Nazis once considered using mosquitoes as biological weapons during the second world war, revealed through research on scientists at an institute in Dachau conducting research into how malaria-infected insects could be kept alive long enough to be released into enemy territory. In January 1942, SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, ordered the creation of the Dachau entomological institute. Its official mission was to find new remedies against diseases transmitted by lice and other insects as German troops were often plagued by typhoid, and there were concerns about a developing typhoid epidemic. In 1944, scientists examined different types of mosquitoes for their life spans in order to establish whether they could be kept alive long enough to be transported from a breeding lab to a drop-off point. At the end of the trials, the director of the institute recommended a particular type of anopheles mosquito, a genus well-known for its capacity to transmit malaria to humans. Research was carried out in secret due to Germany having signed up to the 1925 Geneva protocol ruling out the use of biological and chemical weapons during WW2. So, moving on from that interesting little historical fact, this post will be in dedication to mosquitoes!

The Mosquito 

• Mosquitoes are insects that have been around for more than 30 million years.
• They have a battery of sensors designed to track their prey, including chemical sensors (they can sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 100 feet away. Mammals and birds give off these gases during respiration. Certain chemicals in sweat also seem to attract mosquitoes), visual sensors (clothing that contrasts with the background and movement in that clothing can be seen by mosquitoes and they can zero in on you, as with anything moving, it is alive, therefore full of blood), and heat sensors (they can detect heat, so that they can find warm-blooded mammals and birds very easily once they get close enough)
• They have three basic body parts: the head where all the senors are along with the biting apparatus. The head has two compound eyes, antennae to sense chemicals and the the mouth parts called the palpus and the proboscis (only females have the proboscis, for biting), the thorax where it has two wings and six legs attached, contains flight muscles, compound heat and some nerve cell ganglia and trachioles (small airways that allow for respiration), and the abdomen which contains the digestive and excretory organs
• Mosquitoes hatch from eggs and go through several stages in their life cycle before becoming adults. The females lay their eggs in water, and the larva and pupa stages live entirely in water. When the pupa change into adults, they leave the water and become free-flying land insects. The life cycle of a mosquito can vary from one to several weeks depending upon the species (the adult, mated females of some species can survive the winter in cool, damp places until spring, when they will lay their eggs and die.)
• Female mosquitoes are attracted by several things, including heat (infrared light), light, perspiration, body odor, lactic acid and carbon dioxide. The female lands on your skin and sticks her proboscis into you, so sharp and thin you may not even feel it going in, and her saliva contains proteins (anticoagulants) that prevent your blood from clotting. She sucks your blood into her abdomen. If she is disturbed, she will fly away. Otherwise, she will remain until she has a full abdomen. If you were to cut the sensory nerve to her abdomen, she would keep sucking until she burst.
• After she has bitten you, some saliva remains in the wound. The proteins from the saliva evoke an immune response from your body. The area swells (the bump around the bite area is called a wheal), and you itch, a response provoked by the saliva. Eventually, the swelling goes away, but the itch remains until your immune cells break down the saliva proteins.

Thanks for reading!

The Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion

Hello readers! Today's blog post will be about nuclear fusion, inspired after I read a recent article on a new breakthrough in nuclear fusion. It has been reported that US researchers have achieved a world first in an ambitious experiment that aims to recreate the conditions that occurs in the deep core of the sun and will pave the way for new nuclear fusion reactors. They generated more energy from fusion reactions than they put in the nuclear fuel, which is a crucial step to harnessing fusion power. The ultimate goal of this experiment is to produce more energy than the whole experiment consumes which still remains a long way off, but this feat has raised hopes after decades of setbacks and how progress is finally being made. Their experiments, at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, used a bank of 192 powerful lasers to crush a minuscule amount of fuel so hard and fast that it becomes hotter than the sun. During the experiment, they managed to produce from the fusion reactions in the fuel, 17 kilojoules of energy was released.    



So what is nuclear fusion?

It is the process of making a single heavy nucleus from two lighter nuclei. This process is called a nuclear reaction which releases a large amount of energy. The nucleus made by fusion is heavier than either of the starting nuclei. It is not as heavy as the original mass of the starting nuclei. This lost mass is due to the energy produced. (and lost from the mass, it has changed into lots of energy). Fusion is what happens in the middle of stars, for example, the Sun. Hydrogen atoms are fused together to make helium. This releases lots of energy which powers the heat and light of the start. Not all elements can be joined; heavier elements are less easily joined than lighter ones, for example, iron cannot fuse with other atoms. This is what cases stars to die. Stars join all their atoms together to make heavier atoms of different types until they start to make iron, which causes the reactions to stop, and the start to cool down and die. It is very difficult to recreate nuclear fusion reactions on Earth that release more energy than is needed to start the reaction. The only successful approach so far has been in nuclear weapons. The hydrogen bomb uses an atomic bomb in order to start fusion reactions. However, in order to use the reaction as a clean source of energy, there is still a lot of challenges and hurdles facing scientists before it can be a viable source.  

How does it work?

• In nuclear fission, you get energy from splitting one atom into two atoms. In an nuclear reactor, high-energy neutrons split heavy atoms of uranium, yielding large amounts of energy, radiation and radioactive wastes that lasts for a long time
• In nuclear fusion, you get energy when two atoms join together to form one. In a fusion reactor, hydrogen atoms come together to form helium atoms, neutrons and vast amounts of energy. It would be a cleaner, safer and more efficient and abundant source of power than nuclear fission
• There are several types of fusion reactions and most involve the isotopes of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium: a proton-proton chain which is a sequence used by stars such as the sun. Two pairs of protons form to make two deuterium atoms. Each deuterium atom combines with a proton to form a helium-3 atom. Two helium-3 combine to form beryllium-6, which is unstable. Beryllium-6 decays into two helium-4 atoms. These reactions produce high energy particles (protons, electrons, nuetrinos, positrons), and radiation (light, gamma rays).  
• There is also deuterium-deuterium reactions which involve two deuterium atoms combine to form a helium-3 atom and a neutron. There is also deuterium-tritium reactions where one atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combine to form a helium-4 atom and a neutron. Most of the energy released is in the form of the high-energy neutron.
• Conditions for nuclear fusion: high temperature, which gives the hydrogen atoms enough energy to overcome the electrical repulsion between the protons. Fusion requires temperatures about 100 million Kelvin (approximately six times hotter than the sun's core), and at this temperature, hydrogen is a plasma, not a gas. Plasma is a high-energy state of matter in which all the electrons are stripped from atoms and move freely about. The sun achieves these temperatures by its large mass and the force of gravity compressing this mass in the core. We must use energy from microwaves, lasers and ion particles to achieve these temperatures. Another condition is high pressure, which squeezes the hydrogen atoms together and they must be within 1x10-15 meters of each other to fuse. The sun uses its mass and force of gravity to squeeze hydrogen atoms together in its core, so we must squeeze hydrogen atoms together using intense magnetic fields, powerful lasers or ion beams.

Thanks for reading!

The Path to Heart Disease

Hello readers! After reading an article about the use of the drug statins, examining the new NHS guidance that suggested that it should be offered to millions more who have only a low risk of heart disease or a stroke, this leads me to my new post, on heart disease, and its causes and effects.

Cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of deaths in the UK, responsible for one in every three, even though the numbers have halved since the 1970s and 1980s. In 2010, about 80,000 deaths were caused by cardiovascular disease and 49,000 by strokes. Both conditions also cause a great deal of long-term damage and ill-health to people who survive.The NHS website states that coronary heart disease is the UK's biggest killer and causes around 82,000 deaths each year. About one in five men and one in eight women die from the disease. In the UK, there are an estimated 2.7 million people that live with the condition and a further 2 million affected by angina, the most common symptom of CHD. It generally affects more men than women by from the age of 50, the chances of developing CHD are similar for men and women. Angina is one of the main symptoms of CHD as well as heart attack and heart failure. Not everyone has the same symptoms and some people may not have any of these symptoms before CHD is diagnosed. It is sometimes called ischameic heart disease. 

To explain heart disease and how it works, we should first consider the heart and how it works:


How the heart works:

• Each day, your heart beats about 100,000 times.
• It pumps about 23,000 litres (5,000 gallons) of blood around your body.
• This blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to all parts of your body, and carries away unwanted carbon dioxide and waste products.
• The heart is divided into two pumps which work together. Blood that is coming back from the organs and tissues of your body enters the right side of your heart which then pumps it to your lungs. Your lungs remove waste carbon dioxide from the blood and recharge it with oxygen. The oxygen-rich blood returning from your lungs enters the left side of your heart, which then pumps it to all parts of your body, including the heart muscle itself. This process ensures that there is always enough oxygen and nourishment for your body to work efficiently  
• The heart comprises less than 0.5 percent of the total body weight and has three layers. The smooth, inside lining of the heart is called the endocardium. The middle layer of heart muscle is called the myocardium. It is surrounded by a fluid filled sac call the pericardium.
• It is divided into four chambers, the right atrium (RA), the right ventricle (RV), the left atrium (LA), and the left ventricle (LV). Each of the chambers has a sort of one-way valve at its exit, which prevents blood from flowing backwards. When each chamber contracts, the valve at its exist opens. Pressure on one side is higher than the other and that creates the flow forwards in one direction where it cannot go backwards. When it has finished contracting, the valve closes so that the blood does not flow backwards. 
• The tricupside valve is at the exit of the right atrium, the pulmonary valve is at the exit of the right ventricle, the mitral valve is at the exit of the left atrium and the aortic valve is at the exit of the left ventricle. 
• When the heart muscle contracts or beats, this action is called a systole. It pumps blood out of the heart. The heart contracts in two stages: in the first stage, the right and left atria contract at the same time, pumping blood to the right and left ventricles. Then the ventricles contract together to propel blood out of the heart. Then the heart muscle relaxes (called diastole) before the next heartbeat. This allows blood to fill up the heart again.
• The right and left sides of the heart have separate functions. The right side of the heart collects oxygen-poor blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs where it picks up oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. The left side of the heart then collects oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the body so that the cells throughout your body have the oxygen they need to function properly.
• Diagram of the chambers:

• All blood enters the right side of the heart through two veins: the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava. The superior vena cava collects blood from the upper half of the body and the inferior vena cava collects blood from the lower half of the body. Blood leaves the two veins and enters the right atrium. When the right atrium contracts, the blood goes through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle. When the RV contracts, blood is pumped through the pulmonary valve into the pulmonary artery and into the lungs where it picks up oxygen.
• Blood returning from the body is poor in oxygen as it has been oxygen has been diffusing into cells its been passing. So it needs to be full of oxygen before returning to the body. So the right side of the heart pumps blood to the lungs first, picking up oxygen, before going to the left side of the heart where it is returned to the body.
• It returns from the lungs to the heart via the pulmonary veins and goes into the left atrium. When the left atrium contracts, blood travels through the mitral valve and into the left ventricle. The left ventricle pumps blood from the aortic valve into the aorta. The aorta is the main artery of the body: it receives all the blood the heart has pumped out and distributes it to the rest of the body. The left ventricle has a thicker muscle because it must pump blood to the rest of the body against a higher pressures in general circulation. 

Heart disease

• Coronary heart disease is the term that describes what happens when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries. Over time, the walls of your arteries can become furred up with fatty deposits. This process is known as atherosclerosis and the fatty deposits are called atheroma.
• This can be caused by lifestyle habits and other conditions, such as: smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes
•  When the heart muscle goes without sufficient oxygen, the muscle is said to be ischemic. If cell death occurs it is called infarction. Since a heart attack is cell death of heart muscle (myocardium), it is called a Myocardial Infarction (MI). The condition that causes CAD, angina and heart attacks is called atherosclerosis.
• Coronary arteries supply blood to the heart muscle. When a blockage occurs in one of these arteries, blood flow to the heart muscle is decreased. This will be realised during exertion as the heart muscle works harder and needs more oxygen-enriched blood than normal. By preventing the much needed increase in blood flow, the blockage deprives the heart muscle of oxygen thereby causing the heart muscle to hurt. This chest pain is called angina.
• Arteriosclerosis is a more general term for hardening of the arteries. Atherosclerosis is a type of arteriosclerosis that causes a buildup of fatty material along the inner lining of arteries. When a heart muscle goes without sufficient oxygen, the muscle is said to ischemic. If cell death occurs, it is called infarction. A heart attack is cell death of heart muscle and is aclled a myocardial infarction.  
• So, in summary, if a blockage occurs in a coronary artery, it causes chest pain (angina), if the blockage is complete, it can cause a heart attack (myocardial infarction), if a blockage occurs in one of the arteries near the brain, a stroke can occur and if a blockage occurs in a leg artery, it causes peripheral vascular disease and can cause pain while walking. This is called intermittent claudication. 

Hope this has been informative, thanks for reading