This is how research in space is changing life on Earth



Space science is behind numerous innovations that we all take for granted, such as GPS systems for navigation, air purifiers and 3D printers.
Image: Unsplash/ Eberhard Grossgasteiger

01 Feb 2022
Johnny Wood

Writer, Formative Content

Space

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Astronaut Matthias Maurer joined a Davos Agenda session live from the International Space Station to explain the research he undertakes.

Microgravity creates a unique environment to enhance certain experiments.

Space research has helped develop numerous innovations and advance understanding of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.

Astronauts also help monitor Earth’s resources and assist in dealing with natural disasters.

Most people will never experience microgravity, but space’s unique atmosphere could still change their lives.

That’s because for astronauts such as Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency, low gravity offers an opportunity to advance research that benefits people back on Earth.

The International Space Station (ISS) is home to investigations into life, the universe and everything in between. But how do these experiments change the everyday lives of Earth’s inhabitants?

In a special session of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda 2022, live from the ISS, Maurer discussed the details of his work with guests including former US Vice President Al Gore.



Microgravity and the ISS lab

But it is not just technology that is getting better because of space flights. Zero gravity changes the human body, allowing astronauts to become guinea pigs for efforts to fight disease, Maurer said.

Muscles and bones react differently in space than on Earth. This means that on the ISS, controlled experiments can be fast-tracked to study health conditions such as muscle atrophy and bone density loss.

Samples from months of scientific experiments are harvested and returned to Earth in a transport vehicle, ready to be analysed, Maurer explained.

Osteoporosis among US adults aged 50 and over

Osteoporosis affected more than one in 10 US adults aged 50 or over in 2017-18. Image: Statista

In the US alone, osteoporosis affected more than 12% of adults aged 50 and over in 2017-18, up from 9.4% a decade earlier. Microgravity is helping research into such conditions by providing a clearer understanding of the properties, behaviours and treatment responses of cells, organoids and protein clusters.

Zero gravity experiments have already furthered human understanding and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, cancer, heart disease Parkinson’s disease and many other conditions.

Keeping a close eye on climate change

Astronauts on the ISS also monitor the planet’s health. Floating 400 kilometres above the surface in low Earth orbit gives a unique perspective on the planet’s evolution – one that goes beyond NASA’s satellite capabilities.

The space station gathers images and data to monitor the evolution of land masses, water, air, vegetation and other resources. Monitoring water and energy cycles, ecosystem changes, population migration patterns and other developments helps inform environmental research and climate science.

It’s a vantage point that can also assist with natural disasters, with orbital images and data helping to track major storms, fires and other extreme weather events by documenting cloud cover, flooding and changes to the land. Night images can also check whether power has been restored after a disaster strikes.

Space science can even help mitigate some of the impacts of climate change and save lives. New water purification systems designed for life on the ISS are helping people in some areas gain access to clean water.

Have you read?
Can space tech save the planet? Astronaut Matthias Maurer joins Al Gore and other experts from space

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Space research helps innovation

Astronauts also conduct research in space to better understand how fluids behave. Studying fluid dynamics in a gravity-free environment can help with the development of everything from medical devices to heat transfer systems.

On a molecular level, microgravity has helped improve our understanding of colloids – mixtures of tiny particles suspended in liquid. While you may not have heard of them, colloid research helps companies design better everyday products you have heard of, such as toothpaste and pharmaceuticals.

These are just a few of the many ways space research has improved life for humans, but there are many more. And there are also many challenges that lie ahead.

The last word on the subject should go to Matthias Maurer. Looking down on our planet, he reflects on the advances made by humans and notes that “Earth is one big spaceship”.

And the crew of planet Earth – all 7.9 billion of us – need to work together to meet today’s challenges.

NASA is funding a telescope in South Africa to detect asteroids that could wipe out a city

Staff Writer2 February 2022

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Blade Nzimande has announced the launch of the new ATLAS asteroid alert system telescope in South Africa.

The system, operated by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy and funded by the North American Space Agency (NASA), currently has two telescopes in Hawaii that cover the Northern Hemisphere.

Now, telescopes have been built at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile and the Sutherland Observing Station in South Africa to scan from the Southern Hemisphere.

The two locations were selected for their access to the southern part of the sky as well as their time zones, which allow for night observation when it is daytime in Hawaii. The four telescopes are capable of scanning the entire dark sky every 24 hours for objects that could collide with the Earth.

“The construction of the two additional ATLAS telescopes, in South Africa and Chile, is now complete.  They have already begun operations – and the South African telescope, ATLAS-Sutherland, has already discovered its first near-Earth object,” said Nzimande.

John Tonry, ATLAS principal investigator and professor at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, says ‘an asteroid that hits the Earth can come at any time from any direction, so it is good to know that ATLAS is now surveying all the sky, all the time’.

“The ATLAS system is specially designed to detect objects that approach very close to Earth – closer than the distance to the moon, about 240,000 km or 150,000 miles,” he said.

The system can provide one day’s warning for a 10-metre diameter asteroid, which would be capable of city-level destruction, and up to three weeks’ warning for a 100-metre diameter asteroid, which could have 10 times the destructive power of the recent Hunga Tonga volcano eruption if it were to strike the Earth.

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Read: South Africa to launch three nanosatellites as part of R27 million space project

Astronaut’s Photos From the ISS Make Earth Look Like a Painting

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer has published a pair of photos of the Arabian Peninsula as seen from the International Space Station, revealing colors and lines that look akin to brush strokes on a painting.

A Unique Perspective of the Arabian Peninsula

Maurer is a German astronaut who joined the ESA in July of 2015. He is undertaking his first mission for the International Space Station (ISS) known as Cosmic Kiss. He is the second ESA astronaut to fly under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and was launched on November 11, 2021, from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, as part of SpaceX Crew-3, alongside NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron.

Credit: ESA/NASA-M. Maurer

Credit: ESA/NASA-M. Maurer

“Seen from above, our Earth looks like a true work of art,” Maurer writes on Twitter. “I took these colorful pictures of the Arabian Peninsula, but I also wonder what these shapes and lines in the desert are.”

When astronaut Thomas Pesquet — who photographed the planet over a quarter of a million times during his time in space — returned to Earth from the ISS, there was a lull in photos taken from the space station.

But Maurer appears more than capable of continuing to expertly document the planet, and it is likely more beautiful aerial scenes will be shared throughout mission Cosmic Kiss.

Mission Cosmic Kiss

Cosmic Kiss is the name of the mission assigned to Maurer where he will supervise and carry out 36 German and more than 100 international experiments on the ISS. According to DLR, these experiments will range from fundamental research to application-oriented science in fields such as life sciences, materials science, physics, biology, medicine, and Earth observation. Detailed information about some of the specific experiments can be found on the German Aerospace Center’s website.

Microbes found to establish electrical connection to outside world to generate growth power

by Harvard University

Geographic locales of microorganisms encoding elements of the MtrCAB system. The

 geographic location of isolation was unavailable for some sequences, and geographical

 sampling biases are apparent. Large red circles represent the South Pacific, North Atlantic,

 and Indian Ocean (Eastern Africa Coastal Province) regions described by Tully et al. (146)

. For more details, see Table S1. The map was created using the Positron base map 

available in QGIS (https://cartodb.com/basemaps/). 

Credit: Map tiles by CartoDB, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbl

Microbes may be miniscule, but they have a massive impact on Earth and its habitability. They are uniquely different from animals, plants, and other eukaryotic organisms in that they can gain energy from "breathing" a surprisingly wide range of surfaces and materials. Microbes also drastically reshape their environment as they feast on these energy sources, making microbes major players in the cycling and availability of nutrients on Earth. One especially well-known example was the rise of oxygen on Earth due to the metabolism of photosynthetic bacteria.

In more recent years, scientists have discovered an astonishing new process by which microbes can "breathe" rocks through a process called extracellular electron transfer (EET). With EET microbes are able to "breathe" rocks and other materials that are outside their cell. In other words, microbes literally establish an electrical connection to the outside world, a connection they use to generate the power they need to grow. Researchers have since found groundbreaking uses for EET-capable microbes, such as aiding in toxic waste cleanup and as a source of alternative energy.

In a new study in mBio, researchers from Harvard and the University of Minnesota surveyed the tree of life in search of EET and discovered it is far more widespread than previously thought and is spread through horizontal gene transfer. One set of genes that makes EET possible, called mtrCAB, has been especially well-studied in the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis. Shewanella oneidensis was one of the first EET-capable organisms ever discovered. As such, it's had a decades-long head start for the science community to interrogate it in the lab.

"A lot of our understanding of mtrCAB comes from studies in this particular organism," said co-lead author Isabel R. Baker, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. "But we don't really know how widespread this type of metabolism is amongst all of life's branches. Understanding how widespread it is will help us pinpoint where this kind of metabolism is at play in global biogeochemical cycles."

Baker and co-senior author Professor Peter R. Girgus, also in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, were keen on partnering with University of Minnesota researchers co-senior author Professor Jeffrey A. Gralnick and co-lead author Bridget E. Conley. Gralnick and Conley are leading experts in EET research in Shewanella. Their previous work found that mtrCAB enables EET in at least two other species beyond Shewanella.

In combining their expertise and a global database, the researchers found that these genes existed in far more organisms than previously assumed and in a wide variety of environments all over the world.

"We found these genes in microbes all over the planet from virtually every kind of environment, including the deep sea, salt flats, oil refinery sites, the human gut, and even wastewater contaminated by the Manhattan project," Baker said. Further analysis revealed that the set of genes were horizontally transferred extensively throughout the history of life.

"The acquisition of genes is analogous to installing an app on your phone to give it a new functionality. Horizontal gene transfer is often associated with antibiotic resistance, but here we see a metabolic capability, EET, moving in and out of bacterial genomes," Gralnick said.

The researchers hypothesized that whenever the genes landed in different species, the genes involved in EET would change over time to better suit the new organism's physiology and the environment it lived in.

"It's sort of a foregone conclusion that microbes really shape our planet and EET had always been viewed as a niche ability," Girguis said. "But we looked at all of the genomic information from animals, Archaea, and bacteria, and all other forms of life and found it's far more widespread than previously assumed. All of the organisms we identified are capable of plugging directly into the substrates in their environment and changing what's available there."

"The availability of these different substrates change over time as the Earth continues to evolve, either naturally or from human impact," Baker said. "Understanding how these proteins may have coevolved with the history of oxygen on earth is very important. It could help us understand if this metabolism, or a metabolism like this, helped play a role in one of the massive transformations of our planet's surface that gave rise to the modern world as we know it."Bacteria may hold key for energy storage, biofuels

More information: Isabel R. Baker et al, Evidence for Horizontal and Vertical Transmission of Mtr-Mediated Extracellular Electron Transfer among the Bacteria, mBio (2022). DOI: 10.1128/mbio.02904-21

Journal information: mBio 

Provided by Harvard University 

Perfectly preserved 99 million-year-old flowers can help study evolution of flowering plants

WION Web Team
New Delhi, India Published: Feb 02, 2022, 

The author said that these particular flowers are almost identical to their modern relatives. 

Photograph:( Twitter )

The two flowers are believed to be ephemeral (which means the flower with a short life cycle), they disappear after blooming and transforming into a fruit

New research has revealed that perfectly preserved flowers that are centuries old can help scientists study the evolution and spread of flowering plants.

As per a CNN report, two flowers in perfect form were found preserved in globs of amber. They are said to be bloomed at the feet of dinosaurs.

New findings suggest how some of the flowering plants in the South African region today have remained unchanged for 99 million years. The two flowers once bloomed in what is now Myanmar.

The two flowers are believed to be ephemeral (which means the flower with a short life cycle), they disappear after blooming and transforming into a fruit.

ALSO READ | Extreme heating in oceans becoming 'new normal' as it 'passed point of no return' years ago

Robert Spicer, who is the author of the study said, "Leaves are generally produced in larger numbers than flowers and are much more robust -- they have a higher preservation potential."

"A leaf is discarded 'as is' at the end of its useful life, while a flower transforms into a fruit, which then gets eaten or disintegrates as part of the seed dispersal process," added Spicer who is a professor emeritus in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at The Open University in the United Kingdom.

"These particular flowers are almost identical to their modern relatives. There really are no major differences," added Spicer.

The atmosphere of this uninhabitable exoplanet is eerily similar to Earth

Joshua Hawkins
Tue, February 1, 2022,


New data found by researching one of the most extreme exoplanets we know of could help us understand the complex atmospheric layers of others, including Earth-like planets.

According to a media release, a group of researchers has peered into the atmosphere of one of the most extreme planets. This exoplanet in question is WASP-189b. Researchers say it is a hot, Jupiter-like planet. The planet was first scrutinized using the CHEOPS space telescope. Now, researchers have discovered that WASP-189b has an atmosphere very similar to the Earth’s.

This exoplanet’s atmospheric layers could help us find more planets in the future

The research team, which consists of people from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva, recently analyzed WASP-189b’s atmosphere. Researchers from the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCRs) PlanetS also joined in. The team discovered that the exoplanet’s atmosphere was very similar to the Earth’s. Instead of only being one layer, as many believed before, the atmosphere was made of distinct 3D layers.

In-depth research into the exoplanet’s atmospheric layers was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. During their study, the team found that the planet featured an atmospheric layer very similar to the Earth’s Ozone layer.

“We measured the light coming from the planet’s host star and passing through the planet’s atmosphere,” Bibiana Prinoth said in a media statement. “The gases in its atmosphere absorb some of the starlight, similar to Ozone absorbing some of the sunlight in the Earth’s atmosphere”. Prinoth is the lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Lund University.

Prinoth says that the starlight then leaves a “fingerprint” behind. The researchers were able to study it using the HARPS spectrograph at the La Silla Observatory. They found that the gases left in the exoplanet’s atmospheric layers included iron, vanadium, chromium, manganese, and magnesium.
What it all means


Seeing an “Ozone layer” on a planet as hot as WASP-189b is surprising. After all, this planet is 20 times closer to its host star than the Earth is to the Sun. Because of how close it is, the planet experiences daytime temperatures as hot as 3,200 degrees Celsius. For comparison, Mercury, the planet closest to our Sun, only reaches temperatures of 430 degrees Celsius during the day.

This new information debunks old beliefs that exoplanet atmospheres were a uniform layer. Using the new data, researchers hope they can understand the atmospheres of exoplanets better. Additionally, they hope it will provide new knowledge about Earth-like exoplanets, too. That would include a better understanding of how those exoplanet’s atmospheric layers work. Unfortunately, many believe this requires innovation in data analysis techniques, as well as computer modeling and atmospheric theory.

Extreme alien world with metal atmosphere shows how weird the universe can be

The universe is drunk on its own power and needs to go home

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)


By John Loeffler 

When you think of air, you don't typically think of metal, but that's probably because you aren't on WASP-189b. To be clear, you'd also be very dead if you were.

WASP-189b is an exoplanet orbiting a star about 322 light-years away from us and it's what astronomers call a "hot Jupiter." Unlike our own gas giants, which orbit the sun on the outer part of our solar system, hot Jupiters are gas giants that orbit closely to their host stars. WASP-189b, for example, is about 20 times closer to its star as we are to the sun.

This produces very hot atmospheric temperatures on the daytime side of the planet, upward of 3,200 degrees Celsius. This is hot enough to boil metals like iron, chromium, and magnesium, which brings these elements into their gaseous states and allows them to create a layered atmosphere around the planet.

Researchers at the University of Bern, University of Geneva, and Lund University in Sweden discovered the extraordinary chemical composition of WASP-189b's atmosphere using data from the Characterising Exoplanets Satellite (CHEOPS) space telescope and the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph at Chile's La Silla Observatory.

"We measured the light coming from the planet’s host star and passing through the planet’s atmosphere," Bibiana Prinoth, a doctoral student at Lund University and the lead author of a new study in Nature Astronomy detailing the discovery, said in a statement.

"The gases in its atmosphere absorb some of the starlight, similar to ozone absorbing some of the sunlight in Earth’s atmosphere, and thereby leave their characteristic ‘fingerprint.’ With the help of HARPS, we were able to identify the corresponding substances.”

Among those identified were iron, chromium, vanadium, magnesium, and manganese. Also spotted was titanium oxide, which is particularly interesting to researchers.

"Titanium oxide absorbs short wave radiation, such as ultraviolet radiation," said study co-author Kevin Heng, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Bern. "Its detection could therefore indicate a layer in the atmosphere of WASP-189b that interacts with the stellar irradiation similarly to how the Ozone layer does on Earth."
Analysis: Extreme exoplanets challenge us to think differently about the universe

After spending centuries looking at the planets of our own solar system, we've developed something of a baseline for what we consider to be extreme environments, like Venus' crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere and runaway greenhouse effect trapping in temperatures of nearly 482 degrees Celsius.

The more we look at exoplanets though, the more apparent it becomes that Venus and Jupiter are only a glimpse of how drastic conditions on other worlds might be.

The idea of a hot Jupiter hadn't been considered until we first started identifying exoplanets out in the galaxy and found that not only do they exist but are pretty common.

Planets with metallic atmospheres shouldn't be any more of a surprise when you consider the abundance of iron in the universe. After all, it has a boiling point well below the temperature that most stars are capable of producing even at a significant distance, so it's perfectly logical that you're going to find planets with iron atmospheres.

It doesn't make it any less weird to contemplate, though, and part of the fun of learning about exoplanets is finding out just how weird the universe can be.

Those aren't stars–they're black holes

John Loeffler
Computing Staff Writer
John (He/Him) is a Computing Staff Writer here at TechRadar and is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY.

Named by the CTA as a CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for his science and technology reporting, John specializes in all areas of computer science, including industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as general science writing and the social impact of the tech industry.

You can find him online on Twitter at @thisdotjohn

Currently playing: EVE Online, Sucker for Love: First Date, GTFO, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Climate change has likely begun to suffocate the world’s fisheries

Date:February 1, 2022

Source:American Geophysical Union

Summary:

By 2080, around 70 percent of the world's oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, according to a new study. The new models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021.

School of fish in ocean (stock image).
Credit: © artifirsov / stock.adobe.com

By 2080, around 70% of the world's oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, according to a new study. The new models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021.

Oceans carry dissolved oxygen as a gas, and just like land animals, aquatic animals need that oxygen to breathe. But as the oceans warm due to climate change, their water can hold less oxygen. Scientists have been tracking the oceans' steady decline in oxygen for years, but the new study provides new, pressing reasons to be concerned sooner rather than later.

The new study is the first to use climate models to predict how and when deoxygenation, which is the reduction of dissolved oxygen content in water, will occur throughout the world's oceans outside its natural variability.

It finds that significant, potentially irreversible deoxygenation of the ocean's middle depths that support much of the world's fished species began occurring in 2021, likely affecting fisheries worldwide. The new models predict that deoxygenation is expected to begin affecting all zones of the ocean by 2080.

The results were published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

The ocean's middle depths (from about 200 to 1,000 meters deep), called mesopelagic zones, will be the first zones to lose significant amounts of oxygen due to climate change, the new study finds. Globally, the mesopelagic zone is home to many of the world's commercially fished species, making the new finding a potential harbinger of economic hardship, seafood shortages and environmental disruption.

Rising temperatures lead to warmer waters that can hold less dissolved oxygen, which creates less circulation between the ocean's layers. The middle layer of the ocean is particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation because it is not enriched with oxygen by the atmosphere and photosynthesis like the top layer, and the most decomposition of algae -- a process that consumes oxygen -- occurs in this layer.

"This zone is actually very important to us because a lot of commercial fish live in this zone," says Yuntao Zhou, an oceanographer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and lead study author. "Deoxygenation affects other marine resources as well, but fisheries [are] maybe most related to our daily life."

The new findings are deeply concerning and adds to the urgency to engage meaningfully in mitigating climate change, says Matthew Long, an oceanographer at NCAR who was not involved in the study.

"Humanity is currently changing the metabolic state of the largest ecosystem on the planet, with really unknown consequences for marine ecosystems," he said. "That may manifest in significant impacts on the ocean's ability to sustain important fisheries."

Evaluating vulnerability

The researchers identified the beginning of the deoxygenation process in three ocean depth zones -- shallow, middle and deep -- by modeling when the loss of oxygen from the water exceeds natural fluctuations in oxygen levels. The study predicted when deoxygenation would occur in global ocean basins using data from two climate model simulations: one representing a high emissions scenario and the other representing a low emissions scenario.

In both simulations, the mesopelagic zone lost oxygen at the fastest rate and across the largest area of the global oceans, although the process begins about 20 years later in the low emissions scenario. This indicates that lowering carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions could help delay the degradation of global marine environments.

The researchers also found that oceans closer to the poles, like the west and north Pacific and the southern oceans, are particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation. They're not yet sure why, although accelerated warming could be the culprit. Areas in the tropics known for having low levels of dissolved oxygen, called oxygen minimum zones, also seem to be spreading, according to Zhou.

"The oxygen minimum zones actually are spreading into high latitude areas, both to the north and the south. That's something we need to pay more attention to," she says. Even if global warming were to reverse, allowing concentrations of dissolved oxygen to increase, "whether dissolved oxygen would return to pre-industrial levels remains unknown."

Journal Reference:
Hongjing Gong, Chao Li, Yuntao Zhou. Emerging Global Ocean Deoxygenation Across the 21st Century. Geophysical Research Letters, 2021; 48 (23) DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095370

GAIA IS ALIVE

Mountains Sway to the Seismic Song of Earth

The Matterhorn is in constant motion, gently swaying back and forth about once every 2 seconds.
By Richard J. Sima1 

February 2022

Researchers install the reference station at the foot of the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. Credit: Jeff Moore/University of Utah


From a human perspective, mountains stand stoic and still, massive symbols of quiet endurance and immovability.

But new research reveals that mountains are, in fact, moving all the time, swaying gently from the seismic rhythms coursing through the earth upon which they rest.


“It’s kind of a true song of the mountain. It’s just humming with this energy, and it’s very low frequency; we can’t feel it, we can’t hear it. It’s a tone of the Earth.”

A recent study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters reports that the Matterhorn, one of the most famous mountains on the planet, is constantly vibrating about once every 2 seconds because of the ambient seismic energy originating from earthquakes and ocean waves around the world.

“It’s kind of a true song of the mountain,” said Jeffrey Moore, a geologist at the University of Utah and senior author of the study. “It’s just humming with this energy, and it’s very low frequency; we can’t feel it, we can’t hear it. It’s a tone of the Earth.”

https://eos.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/20190905_00-ambient.mp3

Listen to a day of continuous ambient vibration data recorded from the summit of the Matterhorn—sped up 80 times to become audible. 

Credit: Jeff Moore/University of Utah

Recording the “Song of the Mountain”

Every object “wants” to vibrate at certain frequencies depending on its shape and what it is made of (a property known as resonance). Familiar examples include tuning forks and wine glasses; when energy of a resonant frequency hits the object, it shakes harder. Moore and his colleagues hypothesized that mountains, like tall buildings, bridges, and other large structures, also vibrate at predictable resonances on the basis of their topographic shape.

But unlike the world of civil engineering, in which one can test what frequencies are resonant by placing large shakers on the structure or waiting for vehicles to drive over them, it would be impractical to excite something so large as a mountain.

Instead, Moore and his international team of collaborators sought to measure the effects of ambient seismic activity on perhaps one of the most extreme mountains: the Matterhorn.

Located on the border of Italy and Switzerland in the Alps, the pyramid-shaped Matterhorn is the most photographed mountain in the world. It towers nearly 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) in elevation, and its four faces face the cardinal directions.

Scientists placed a solar-powered seismometer near the summit of the Matterhorn to record ambient seismic vibration data. Credit: Jan Beutel/ETH Zurich

Researchers helicoptered up the Matterhorn to set up one solar-powered seismometer roughly the size of a “big cup of coffee” at the summit. Another was placed under the floorboards of a hut a few hundred meters below the peak, and a third was placed at the foot of the mountain as a reference, said Samuel Weber, a researcher at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Switzerland and the lead author of the study.

The seismometers continuously recorded movements and allowed the team to extract the frequency and direction of the resonance.

The movements are small, on the order of nanometers at the baseline to millimeters during an earthquake, Moore said. “But it’s very real. It’s always happening.”

The measurements showed that the Matterhorn consistently oscillates in the north–south direction at a frequency of 0.42 hertz, or slightly less than once every 2 seconds, and in the east–west direction at a similar frequency.

This animation shows the (exaggerated) motion of the Matterhorn. 

Credit: Jeff Moore/University of Utah

Comparing the movement on top of the mountain with measurements from the reference seismometer at its base, the researchers found that the summit was moving much more than the base.

“It was quite surprising that we measured movement on the summit, which was up to 14 times stronger than next to the mountain,” said Weber.

The researchers also made measurements on Grosser Mythen, a similarly shaped (albeit smaller) Swiss mountain, and found similar resonance.

“I just think it’s a clever combination of choices in terms of the location being so iconic and the careful placement of instruments,” said David Wald, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who was not involved in the study. Choosing a smooth mountain like the Matterhorn also removed the problems brought by soil and sediment, which would have added another layer of complexity to measuring movement.
What Makes the Mountains Hum

The baseline vibrations of mountains like the Matterhorn are caused by the hum of seismic energy.

“A lot of this comes from earthquakes rattling all over the world, and really distant earthquakes are able to propagate energy and low frequencies,” Moore said. “They just ring around the world constantly.”

But the data also pointed to another, unexpected source: the oceans.

Ocean waves moving across seafloors create a continuous background of seismic oscillations, known as a microseism, which can be measured around the world, Moore said. Intriguingly, the microseism had a frequency similar to the resonance of the Matterhorn.

“You come to one of these landforms with this idea that you’re trying to capture something hidden, something new and unknown about it. It’s actually a lot of fun because it makes you sit up quietly and think about the mountain in a different way.”

“So the interesting thing was that there’s…some connection between the world’s oceans and the excitation of this mountain,” Moore said.

The research has practical applications in understanding how earthquakes could affect steep mountains where landslides and avalanches are a constant worry.

But it also brings to life a new way of appreciating the Matterhorn and all other mountains swaying in their own way to a music hidden deep beneath Earth.

“You come to one of these landforms with this idea that you’re trying to capture something hidden, something new and unknown about it,” Moore said. “It’s actually a lot of fun because it makes you sit up quietly and think about the mountain in a different way.”

—Richard J. Sima (@richardsima), Science Writer

Citation: Sima, R. J. (2022), Mountains sway to the seismic song of Earth, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220063. Published on 1 February 2022.
Text © 2022. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.
Related

New research links continents to key transitions in Earth’s oceans, atmosphere and climate

Date: February 1, 2022

Source: University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Summary:

A new study advances the understanding of the role that continents have played in the chemical evolution of Earth's oceans, with implications for understanding atmospheric oxygenation and global climate oscillations. 


A new study led by University of Wisconsin Oshkosh geologist Timothy Paulsen and Michigan Tech geologist Chad Deering advances the understanding of the role that continents have played in the chemical evolution of Earth's oceans, with implications for understanding atmospheric oxygenation and global climate oscillations.

The team of researchers analyzed a global database of the chemistry of tiny zircon grains commonly found in the Earth's continental rock record. The research team includes other scientists from Michigan Technological University and ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

The study was featured on the cover of the February issue of GSA Today by the Geological Society of America, which highlights timely, innovative articles that appeal to a broad geoscience audience.

"Oceans cover 70% of Earth's surface, setting it apart from the other terrestrial planets in the solar system," said Paulsen, the lead author on the paper. "Geologists have long recognized that there have been profound changes in ocean chemistry over time."

Yet there are significant questions about the drivers for changes in ocean chemistry in Earth's past, especially associated with the ancient rock record leading up to the Cambrian explosion of life approximately 540 million years ago.

"Continents tend to be worn down by weathering and rivers tend to transport this sediment to the oceans leaving scattered puzzle pieces for geologists to fit together," said Deering, a coauthor on the paper. "There is increasing evidence that important pieces of the puzzle are found in the ancient beach and river sediments produced through continental weathering and erosion."

The researchers' findings, based on an analysis of an exceptionally large zircon data set from sandstones recovered from Earth's major continental landmasses, may signify key links in the evolution of the Earth's rock cycle and its oceans.

"Our results suggest that two major increases in continental input from rivers draining the continents were related to the break-up and dispersal of continents, which caused increased weathering and erosion of a higher proportion of radiogenic rocks and high-elevation continental crust," Paulsen said.

"Both episodes are curiously associated with snowball Earth glaciations and associated steps in oxygenation of the atmosphere-ocean system. Geologists have long recognized that oceans are required to make continents. It would appear based on our analyses that the continents, in turn, shape the Earth's oceans, atmosphere and climate."

Journal Reference:
Timothy Paulsen, Chad Deering, Jakub Sliwinski, Snehamoy Chatterjee, Olivier Bachman. Continental Magmatism and Uplift as the Primary Driver for First-Order Oceanic 87Sr/86Sr Variability with Implications for Global Climate and Atmospheric Oxygenation. GSA Today, 2022; 32 (2): 4 DOI: 10.1130/GSATG526A.1

CAPITALI$M IN $PACE

The problems with space mining no one is talking about


Image: iStock

By Andrew S Rivkin, Johns Hopkins University

 Feb 02, 2022

Laurel (US), Feb 1

Asteroid mining could unlock untold riches and thorny ethical problems. Are we ready as we race to the launch pad?

Asteroid mining is coming sooner than people realise. Several asteroid mining companies have developed serious business cases. Demonstration missions could occur within a few years for interested, patient and well-funded investors.

The most enthusiastic advocates of asteroid mining suggest it could unlock trillions of dollars of wealth; more sober analysts: tens of billions.

Space resources are occasionally compared to those of the sea. But the barrier to entry for the ocean is a fishing pole or net or the ability to dive. Asteroid mining, by contrast, requires advanced technology and large amounts of starting capital.

The level of wealth required to pursue an asteroid mining venture is concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people. Large disparities exist between those able to take advantage of the resources and those most at risk of harm by exploitation.

It also seems possible, if not likely, that the earliest successes in asteroid mining will be the only successes. Competition with established companies will be an additional barrier, and a monopoly or cartel may develop.

Daniel Pilchman, a legal philosopher, says asteroid mining is likely to increase inequality on Earth. He argues it will therefore be an unethical practice, unless it can be regulated to bring benefits to all.

James Schwartz, also a philosopher, says mining asteroid resources is unlikely to “significantly improve the well-being of average human beings”, and by extension, would be unethical. He assumes those resources would be used to support space-based rather than Earth-based needs, a conclusion not everyone agrees with.

Cosmologist Aparna Venkatesan says there's a need to integrate indigenous knowledge and mainstream astronomy to prevent the expansion of “the mindset of colonialism to a truly cosmic scale”. This mindset of colonialism is deeply intertwined with many of the stated motivations for resource exploitation in space and its ability to equip human expansion into the Solar System.

Many other space scientists argue it is “critical that ethics and anticolonial practices are a central consideration of planetary protection”.

They recommend the space science community consider the ethics of planetary missions to explore questions such as the “preservation of environments on planetary bodies”, the “long-term environmental impacts of resource extraction on planetary bodies”, and the “short-term impact of largely unrestrained resource extraction on wealth inequality”.

This legacy of colonialist decision-making harming Indigenous people throughout history has left a stain on the profession of mining - a legacy space miners would do well to avoid. For example, the mining workforce is ageing in part due to the challenge of attracting early career employees who are more environmentally minded than the previous generation.

Environmental impact assessments, now a standard part of the approvals process for many new large-scale mines could be applied to asteroid mining.

Mining companies are increasingly concerned with obtaining a ‘social licence to operate' from local stakeholders, who will shut down mining operations with strikes and blockades if they are dissatisfied.

Asteroid mining may not harm humans in a way that's comparable to terrestrial mining, but disruption and dust from mine operations is still possible.

Physicist Paul Wiegert studied the spread of dust when NASA and the European Space Agency tried nudging the asteroid Didymos to test an asteroid impact prevention system. He concluded that while the released dust and rubble posed no threat to Earth, mining operations could plausibly generate lots of such debris.

On the flip side of questions about whether it is ethical to mine asteroids is the question of whether it is ethical to leave a vast store of resources untouched. Resources that would be useful for things like green energy and large-scale agriculture.

Asteroid resources are unlikely to harbour life, meanwhile the only planetary body with known life in the Solar System, Earth, continues to be exploited.

Weighing these ethical issues may become necessary in the face of climate change and ecosystem collapse. Planetary scientist Philip Metzger argues space mining will allow solutions to Earth's increasing energy demands that are not currently feasible, such as beaming solar energy via microwave to Earth.

The United Nations takes the view that space exploration should be done for the benefit of all. It is reasonable for society, which is being asked to fund investment in enabling technologies, to ask in return not only for a lack of harm from asteroid mining but for an equitable share of the positive benefits gained.

Space science is often lauded for its ability to inspire future generations. That inspiration can cut both ways: how humans act in taking these steps into the cosmos will set precedents that subsequent generations will either follow or have to undo. The question is not only how to make technical progress but whether we should. (360info.org)