It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
What is the carbon footprint of a hospital bed?
In a first-of-its-kind study, Waterloo researchers calculate the environmental footprint of hospitals
Researchers from the University of Waterloo completed the first-ever assessment of a Canadian hospital to reveal its total environmental footprint and specific carbon emission hotspots.
Studying a hospital in British Columbia during its 2019 fiscal year, the researchers identified energy and water use and purchasing of medical products as the hospital’s primary hotspots, accounting for over half of the yearly footprint, totalling 3500-5000 tons of CO2 equivalent. One hospital bed is roughly equivalent to the carbon footprint of five Canadian households.
The new method brings an unprecedented level of comprehensiveness and detail to hospital emissions data that can equip administrative leaders to assess which improvements to focus on to meet their environmental commitments.
“In our work, we often find that the biggest environmental footprints are where you least expect them to be. As the adage goes: out of sight, out of mind,” said Alex Cimprich, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. “The goal is to make hidden environmental footprints more visible so that we can start to manage them.”
The researchers calculated the carbon footprint by assessing thousands of unique products purchased by hospitals and using a combination of statistical sampling and calculations of carbon intensity – CO2 equivalent per dollar spent – for the sampled products. The approach is distinct from commonly used environmental assessments that give a rough overall estimate because it employs a bottom-up approach.
“The results suggest that hospital sustainability initiatives need to look further to achieve deeper emissions reductions,” said Cimprich. “While transportation of patients and products supplied to hospitals and hospital waste are visible areas of environmental concern, other more hidden areas like the supply-chains of medical products could have much bigger environmental footprints.”
Future research could zoom in on the hotspots identified, and the new approach could also be applied to other hospitals and other types of healthcare facilities, such as primary care or long-term care, or even organizations outside the healthcare sector.
IMAGE: A MICROSCOPY IMAGE OF NEURAL CELLS WHERE FLUORESCENT MARKERS SHOW DIFFERENT TYPES OF CELLS. GREEN MARKS NEURONS AND AXONS, PURPLE MARKS NEURONS, RED MARKS DENDRITES, AND BLUE MARKS ALL CELLS. WHERE MULTIPLE MARKERS ARE PRESENT, COLOURS ARE MERGED AND TYPICALLY APPEAR AS YELLOW OR PINK DEPENDING ON THE PROPORTION OF MARKERS.view more
CREDIT: CORTICAL LABS
No longer limited to the realm of science fiction, bio-computing is here, so now is the time to start considering how to research and apply this technology responsibly, an international group of experts says.
The inventors of DishBrain have partnered with bioethicists and medical researchers to map such a framework to help define and address the problem in a paper published in Biotechnology Advances.
“Combining biological neural systems with silicon substrates to produce intelligence-like behaviour has significant promise, but we need to proceed with the bigger picture in mind to ensure sustainable progress,” says lead author Dr Brett Kagan, Chief Scientific Officer of biotech start-up Cortical Lab. The group were made famous by their development of DishBrain – a collection of 800,000 living brain cells in a dish that learnt to play Pong.
While philosophers have for centuries pondered concepts of what makes us human or conscious, co-author and Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Professor Julian Savulescu, warns of the urgency to determine practical answers to these questions.
“We haven’t adequately addressed the moral issues of what is even considered ‘conscious’ in the context of today’s technology,” he says.
“As it stands, there are still many ways of describing consciousness or intelligence, each raising different implications for how we think about biologically based intelligent systems.”
The paper cites early English philosopher Jeremy Bentham who argued that, with respect to the moral status of animals, “the question is not, ‘can they reason?’ nor, ‘can they talk?’ but, ‘can they suffer?’”.
“From that perspective, even if new biologically based computers show human-like intelligence, it does not necessarily follow that they have moral status,” says co-author Dr Tamra Lysaght, Director of Research at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore.
“Our paper doesn’t attempt to definitively answer the full suite of moral questions posed by bio-computers, but it provides a starting framework to ensure that the technology can continue to be researched and applied responsibly,” says Dr Lysaght.
The paper further highlights the ethical challenges and opportunities offered by DishBrain’s potential to greatly accelerate our understanding of diseases such as epilepsy and dementia.
“Current cell lines used in medical research predominately have European-type genetic ancestry, potentially making it harder to identify genetic-linked side effects,” says co-author Dr Christopher Gyngell, Research Fellow in biomedical ethics from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and The University of Melbourne.
“In future models of drug screening, we have the chance to make them more sufficiently representative of the real-world patients by using more diverse cell lines, and that means potentially faster and better drug development.”
The researchers point out that it is worth working through these moral issues, as the potential impact of bio-computing is significant.
“Silicon-based computing is massively energy-hungry with a supercomputer consuming millions of watts of energy. By contrast, the human brain uses as little as 20 watts of energy – biological intelligences will show similar energy efficiency,” says Dr Kagan.
“As it stands, the IT industry is a massive contributor to carbon emissions. If even a relatively small number of processing tasks could be done with bio-computers, there is a compelling environmental reason to explore these alternatives.”
The technology, opportunities, and challenges of Synthetic Biological Intelligence
Brett J. Kagan a,⁎, Christopher Gyngellb,c, Tamra Lysaghtd, Victor M. Coled, Tsutomu Sawaie,f, Julian Savulescub,c,d,g
a Cortical Labs, Melbourne, VIC, Australia b Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia c The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia d Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore e Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan f Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan g Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Abstract
Integrating neural cultures developed through synthetic biology methods with digital computing has enabled the early development of Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI).
Recently, key studies have emphasized the advantages of biological neural systems in some information processing tasks. However, neither the technology behind this early development, nor the potential ethical opportunities or challenges, have been explored in detail yet. Here, we review the key aspects that facilitate the development of SBI and explore potential applications.
Considering these foreseeable use cases, various ethical implications are proposed. Ultimately, this work aims to provide a robust framework to structure ethical considerations to ensure that SBI technology can be both researched and applied responsibly.
The technology, opportunities, and challenges of Synthetic Biological Intelligence
COI STATEMENT
B.J.K. is an inventor on patents for technology related to this paper along with being employed at and holding shares in Cortical Labs Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia. No specific funding or other incentives were provided for involvement in this publication and there are no further potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
Witchcraft accusations an ‘occupational hazard’ for female workers in early modern England
IMAGE: PAGE OF RICHARD NAPIER'S CASEBOOKS FEATURING THE CASE OF A YOUNG WOMAN SUFFERING PERINATAL ILL HEALTH WHO SUSPECTS HER FORMER MIDWIFE OF WITCHCRAFT. (CASE15411) AUGUST 1. MONDAY 12.15PM 1603view more
CREDIT: BODLEIAN LIBRARY
While both men and women have historically been accused of the malicious use of magic, only around 10–30% of suspected witches were men by the 16th and 17th centuries.*
This bias towards women is often attributed to misogyny as well as economic hard times. Now, a Cambridge historian has added another contributing factor to the mix.
Dr Philippa Carter argues that the types of employment open to women at the time came with a much higher risk of facing allegations of witchcraft, or maleficium.
In a study published in the journal Gender & History, Carter uses the casebooks of Richard Napier – an astrologer who treated clients in Jacobean England using star-charts and elixirs – to analyse links between witchcraft accusations and the occupations of those under suspicion.
Most of the jobs involved healthcare or childcare, food preparation, dairy production or livestock care, all of which left women exposed to charges of magical sabotage when death, disease or spoilage caused their clients suffering and financial loss.
“Natural processes of decay were viewed as ‘corruption’. Corrupt blood made wounds rankle and corrupt milk made foul cheese,” said Carter, from Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
“Women’s work saw them become the first line of defence against corruption, and this put them at risk of being labelled as witches when their efforts failed.” This was in contrast to men’s work, which often involved labour with sturdy or rot-resistant materials such as iron, fire or stone.
Moreover, women often worked several jobs, usually in the heart of their communities – criss-crossing between homes, bakehouses, wells, marketplaces – rather than off in fields or workshops.
“The frequency of social contact in female occupations increased the chance of becoming embroiled in the rifts or misunderstandings that often underpinned suspicions of witchcraft,” said Carter. “Many accusations stemmed from simply being present around the time of another’s misfortune.”
“Women often combined multiple income streams, working in several households to make ends meet: watching children, preparing food, treating invalids. They worked not just in one high-risk sector, but in many at once. It stacked the odds against them.”
Napier serviced the physical and mental health needs of ordinary people from the area surrounding his Buckinghamshire practice, taking reams of personal notes on the woes of his clients. His records reveal everyday attitudes to magic in the decades before the English Civil War.
“While complaints ranged from heartbreak to toothache, many came to Napier with concerns of having been bewitched by a neighbour,” said Carter. “Clients used Napier as a sounding board for these fears, asking him for confirmation from the stars or for amulets to protect them against harm.”
“Most studies of English witchcraft are based on judicial records, often pre-trial interrogations, by which point execution was a real possibility. Napier’s records are less engineered. He seems to have kept these notes only for his own reference,” Carter said.
“The astrologer’s services were accessible to the average person. People might visit him to stress-test their theories or look for magical solutions, rather than attempt a risky lawsuit. Napier’s notes allow us access to witchcraft beliefs at a grassroots level, as suspicions bubbled up in England’s villages.”
Carter was able to use the now-digitised casebooks to trawl through his notes for suspected bewitchments, which made up only 2.5% of Napier’s total casefiles.
Between 1597 and 1634, Napier recorded 1,714 witchcraft accusations. The majority of both accusers and suspects were women, although the ratio of female suspects was far higher.**
Some 802 clients identified the suspected witches by name, and 130 of these contained some detail about the suspect’s work.
Six types of work featured regularly across the 130 cases: food services, healthcare, childcare, household management, animal husbandry, and dairying. Such forms of labour were either regularly or almost exclusively the domain of women.
Dairy was symbolically tied to women as “milk-producers”. Carter found 17 cases of magical spoliation of dairy, and 16 involved women only. For example, Alice Gray suspected her neighbours when cheese began to “rise up in bunches like biles [boils] &… heave & wax bitter”. Failures in brewing and baking were also attributed to female witchcraft.
Women often managed food supplies – a power that bred suspicion. Many tales of tit-for-tat maleficium in Napier’s notes derived from spurned requests for food. “Women were both distributers and procurers of food, and failed food exchanges could seed suspicions,” said Carter.
One potential witch, Joan Gill, gained her reputation after her husband consumed milk she had been saving, and the spoon he supped it with lodged itself in his mouth overnight.
Not just denying others food but also supplying it could end in accusation. Nine out of ten suspects who sold food were women, with 25 accusations resulting from a bout of sickness after being fed.
Many women practised as local healers, or “cunning folk”, but this too was a risky occupation: suspicions arose when treatments failed. One male customer, troubled with “a great sorenes [in] his privy [private] partes”, told Napier a female healer had “wewitched him” after he sought a second opinion.
Some of the riskiest work was in what we now call “caring professions”, still dominated by women today: midwifery, attending to the sick or elderly, childminding, and so on. For example, thirteen suspects had cared for the accuser in her childbed.
Infant mortality was high, and the prospect of losing a child often motivated allegations. Over 13% of all recorded witchcraft accusations naming a suspect involved a victim under the age of 12.
Loss of sheep and cattle was also a common cause of accusation. Just over half of livestock workers at the time were women. This parity can be seen in accusers (28 men and 28 women) but not suspects (15 men and 91 women). “Napier’s casebooks suggest that disputes between men over livestock could get deflected onto women,” said Carter.
“An early modern housewife was responsible for managing the health of livestock as well as humans; she made the poultices and syrups used to treat both. When an animal sickened strangely, this could be interpreted as a malefic abuse of her healing skills.”
"Gendered divisions of labour contributed to the predominance of female witchcraft suspects,” added Carter. “In times of crisis, lingering suspicions could erupt as mass denunciations. England’s mid-17th-century witch trials saw hundreds of women executed within the space of three years.
“Every Halloween we are reminded that the stereotypical witch is a woman. Historically, the riskiness of ‘women’s work’ may be part of the reason why.”
Notes: *In mainland Europe, the British Isles and New England in the US. ** Of the 802 accusers in Napier’s records, 500 were female and 232 were male. The gender of the remaining 70 was not recorded. Among the 960 suspects identified by this group of accusers, 855 were female and 105 were male. Collectively, this group of suspects was accused of at least 1,090 separate accounts of maleficium.
The physical calf-bound volumes of Richard Napier’s casebooks are housed in the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
Examples from the casebooks used in the latest analysis
Mrs Pedder the younger of Potters Perry. 33 years (old). April 30 Thursday 11.30 p.m. 1618.
Has not had the right course of her body these 3 years. Fears a consumption & (asks) what is good to keep her from it. Urine very good.
Would have a purge for herself & her husband who fears his father's disease. (He) cares not for meat (food). Is jealous of his wife (she) being very honest & chaste. & (he) is sometimes lunatic & mad. 4 years & a half, every 3 or 4 days. He thinks that he is bewitched with (by) one, a woman that gave his mother physick (medicine).
A young woman suffering perinatal ill health suspects her former midwife:
Sybil Fisher of Cogenhoe. 24 years (old). August 1. Monday 12.15 p.m. 1603
[Astrological chart] lightheaded (delirious).
Lightheaded, laughs, but at first took it with a weeping. Looks ghastly. Fleering (scornful) looks. Sets her teeth. One night did nothing but swear and curse.
Sybil Fisher. She knows not of her husband’s coming for her, knows nobody. They bind her hands and feet. When she is loose she is so strong that they cannot deal with her. Sings idle songs. Desires to dance. She had 2 midwives, the first unskilful, the 2nd froward (grumpy) & would not meddle with her because she was not first sent (for). Her suspected to be a witch. The woman well laid but a week after fell into these fits & at first speaking of her 2nd midwife said ‘what doest thou there with thy black hen?’ & such like speeches.
John Johnson 58 years (old). July 11. Wednesday 9.50 a.m 1632. of Doddington by Wellingborough. Shepherd.
A fortnight since was taken in his knee. (It is) swelled & runs up to his thighs & back & (he) cannot rise. A bad stomach.
Back thighs hucklebone (hipbone) & knee. Cannot stir (move) nor rise nor help him(self).
Suspects witchcraft. Agnes Watts kept his sheep two years before. This shepherd much suspects (her). Lost a Cow.
A page from the casebooks of Richard Napier that includes the case of Mrs Pedder the younger of Potters Perry, who suspects a female healer of witchcraft. (CASE46520). April 30. Thursday 11.30pm. 1618.
A page from the casebooks of Richard Napier that includes the case of John Johnson, who suspects his former shepherdess of witchcraft. (CASE75057). July 11. Wednesday 9.50am. 1632
Work, Gender and Witchcraft in Early Modern England
Job strain combined with high efforts and low reward doubled men’s heart disease risk
These psychosocial stressors are each associated with heart disease risk and the combination was especially dangerous to men, finds study in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes journal
Men exposed to stressful working conditions who also felt that they put forth high effort but received low reward had twice the risk of heart disease compared to men who were free of those psychosocial stressors.
The impact of job strain and effort-reward imbalance combined was similar to the magnitude of the impact of obesity on the risk of coronary heart disease, in the study of nearly 6,500 white-collar workers in Canada.
Results on how work stress affects women’s heart health were inconclusive.
DALLAS, Sept. 19, 2023 — Men who say they have stressful jobs and also feel they exert high efforts for low reward had double the risk of heart disease compared to men free of those stressors, according to new research published today in Circulation:Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a peer-reviewed American Heart Association journal.
“Considering the significant amount of time people spend at work, understanding the relationship between work stressors and cardiovascular health is crucial for public health and workforce well-being,” said lead study author Mathilde Lavigne-Robichaud, R.D., M.S., doctoral candidate, Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit, CHU de Quebec-University Laval Research Center in Quebec, Canada. “Our study highlights the pressing need to proactively address stressful working conditions, to create healthier work environments that benefit employees and employers.”
Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. according to American Heart Association statistics. In 2020, nearly 383,000 Americans died of heart disease.
Research has shown that two psychosocial stressors — job strain and effort-reward imbalance at work — may increase heart disease risk. However, few studies have examined the combined effect.
“Job strain refers to work environments where employees face a combination of high job demands and low control over their work. High demands can include a heavy workload, tight deadlines and numerous responsibilities, while low control means the employee has little say in decision-making and how they perform their tasks,” Lavigne-Robichaud explained.
“Effort-reward imbalance occurs when employees invest high effort into their work, but they perceive the rewards they receive in return — such as salary, recognition or job security — as insufficient or unequal to the effort. For instance, if you’re always going above and beyond, but you feel like you’re not getting the credit or rewards you deserve, that’s called effort-reward imbalance.”
The study found:
Men who said they experienced either job strain or effort-reward imbalance had a 49% increase in risk of heart disease compared to men who didn’t report those stressors.
Men reporting both job strain and effort-reward imbalance were at twice the risk of heart disease compared with men who did not say they were experiencing the combined stressors.
The impact of psychosocial stress at work on women’s heart health was inconclusive.
In men, the impact of job strain and effort-reward imbalance combined was similar to the magnitude of the impact of obesity on the risk of coronary heart disease.
“Our results suggest that interventions aimed at reducing stressors from the work environment could be particularly effective for men and could also have positive implications for women, as these stress factors are associated with other prevalent health issues such as depression,” Lavigne-Robichaud said. “The study's inability to establish a direct link between psychosocial job stressors and coronary heart disease in women signals the need for further investigation into the complex interplay of various stressors and women’s heart health.”
Interventions might include different approaches, such as providing support resources, promoting work-life balance, enhancing communication and empowering employees to have more control over their work, she said.
“The U.S. workforce is among the most stressed in the world, and these workplace stressors can be as harmful to health as obesity and secondhand smoke,” Eduardo J. Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H., FAHA, FAAFP, chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association. “This study adds to the growing body of evidence that the workplace should be prioritized as a vehicle for advancing cardiovascular health for all. The American Heart Association remains committed to and engaged in providing employers with the resources and information they need to actively support the health of their employees and communities through science-backed changes to policy and culture.”
Study background and details:
Researchers studied nearly 6,500 white-collar workers, average age about 45 years old, without heart disease, and followed them for 18 years, from 2000 to 2018.
They studied health and workplace survey information for 3,118 men and 3,347 women in a wide range of jobs in Quebec. The surveys included employees working in senior management, professional, technical and office workers roles. Education levels ranged from no high school diploma to university degree.
Researchers measured job strain and effort-reward imbalance with results from proven questionnaires and retrieved heart disease information using established health databases.
One study limitation is that the researchers studied men and women in white-collar jobs primarily in Quebec, Canada, and the results might not fully represent the diversity of the American working population. However, the study findings may be relevant to white-collar workers in the United States and other high-income countries with similar job structures, according to Lavigne-Robichaud.
Co-authors, disclosures and funding sources are listed in the manuscript.
Studies published in the American Heart Association’s scientific journals are peer-reviewed. The statements and conclusions in each manuscript are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association’s policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association’s overall financial information are available here.
Follow AHA/ASA news on X (formerly known as Twitter) @HeartNews
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About the American Heart Association
The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter)or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.
Psychosocial Stressors at Work and Coronary Heart Disease Risk in Men and Women:18-Year Prospective Cohort Study of Combined Exposures
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POV: You're A NASA Probe Skimming The Surface Of The Sun
Bradley Brownell Tue, September 19, 2023
Gif: NASA
The Parker Space Probe is described by NASA as being “about the size of a small car,” and its only goal is to fly as close to the sun as possible to try to unravel some solar mysteries. What exactly is going on in the ‘solar corona,’ and what do solar flares really do? The space car, launched back in 2018, is currently sitting about 5.8 million miles from the sun and just over a year ago it flew right through a massively powerful sun explosion. Here is what that looked like.
The explosion is called a coronal mass ejection, and this is the first time in history that any spacecraft has ever flown straight through one. A stream of particles erupted from their orbit around the sun, interplanetary space dust blown away from the sun by the CME event. You can see in the gif from NASA that at the start the view of the satellite’s sensor is obscured by lots of dust and debris, and the surrounding stars get clearer as the dust is vacuumed away from view. Without the interplanetary dust in view, there’s nothing to reflect the light of the sun. Massive solar flare strikes Nasa spacecraft sent to study Sun
Vishwam Sankaran Tue, September 19, 2023 Massive solar flare strikes Nasa spacecraft sent to study Sun
A massive solar flare has struck the closest spacecraft ever sent by humans to the Sun, revealing unprecedented insights into eruptions that have the potential to cause blackouts spanning continents.
Nasa’s Parker spacecraft, the fastest human-made object and the first-ever mission to ever “touch the Sun”, has now added another first to its belt by flying through a powerful solar explosion called a coronal mass ejection (CME).
The probe first detected the CME remotely before skirting along its flank, then passed into the structure and finally exited through the other side, scientists pointed out in a study published recently in The Astrophysical Journal.
It cruised in at about 9.2 million km (5.7 million miles) from the solar surface – closer than Mercury ever gets to the Sun.
Eruptions from the Sun expel billions of tons of charged particles at speeds ranging from 100-3,000km per second (60-1,900 miles per second).
“The potential damage of this class of event, large and very fast CMEs, can be colossal,” said Parker project scientist Nour Raouafi at the Johns Hopkins University.
“This is the closest to the Sun we’ve ever observed a CME. We’ve never seen an event of this magnitude at this distance,” Dr Raouafi said.
The research was published earlier this month, a full year after the spacecraft experienced the massive solar storm.
In the process, the spacecraft spent about two days observing the solar storm, revealing an unparalleled view into these stellar events.
As the probe passed behind the CME’s shockwave, its suite of instruments clocked particles accelerating up to 1,350km (840 miles) per second.
If such a flare had been directed towards Earth, Dr Raouafi suspects it may have been close in magnitude to the Carrington Event – an 1859 solar storm held as the most powerful on record to hit Earth.
However, the Parker probe was unfazed thanks to its heat shield and radiators, while its thermal protection system ensured its temperatures never changed.
Scientists are currently working to piece together how the event unfolded by comparing measurements collected by the probe within the CME with those gathered outside it.
“You try simplified models to explain certain aspects of the event, but when you are this close to the Sun, none of these models can explain everything,” said study lead author Orlando Romeo from the University of California, Berkeley.
“We’re still not exactly sure what is happening there or how to connect it,” Dr Romeo said.
Researchers said the spacecraft is likely to observe more such massive CMEs as the Sun approaches solar maximum – a peak in its 11-year activity cycle that is expected in 2025.
The spacecraft’s next solar flyby is set to occur on 27 September.
Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter team up to tackle 65-year-old sun mystery
Robert Lea Sun, September 17, 2023 Two views of the sun, the left looks like a yellow fiery ball of plasma while the right looks like a glowing white light with reddish beams around it.
A new groundbreaking measurement made by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft and the Parker Solar probe brings scientists closer than ever to solving a longstanding mystery surrounding the sun. Oddly enough, our host star's atmosphere, or corona, is staggeringly hotter than the solar surface despite being further away from the obvious source of the sun’s heat — and this is a puzzle that has troubled physicists for about 65 years.
The collaboration between these two instruments was made possible when the Solar Orbiter, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) performed some space-based gymnastics. These maneuvers allowed the spacecraft to observe the sun and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe at the same time. Ultimately, that allowed for simultaneous solar observations between the two, which together indicated that turbulence is likely heating the solar corona to incredible temperatures.
"The ability to use both Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe has really opened up an entirely new dimension in this research," Gary Zank, co-author of a study on the results and a researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said in a statement.
This team-up could finally solve the so-called "coronal heating mystery," which revolves around that heat discrepancy between the corona, made of wispy and nebulous electrically charged gas called plasma, and the sun’s surface, or photosphere.
What is the coronal heating mystery?
The corona can reach temperatures as great as 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1,000,000 degrees Celsius), while 1,000 miles below it, the photosphere only reaches temperatures of around 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius).
That is a troubling fact because the sun’s core, where the nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium occurs, is where the vast majority of the sun’s heat comes from. This is like air about one foot above a campfire being hotter than air one inch away from the flames.
The discrepancy in heat also means there must be another heating mechanism at play directly on the corona. Until now, that mechanism has evaded scientists, but turbulence in the atmosphere of the sun significantly heating coronal plasma has long been considered a plausible explanation. However, that hypothesis had been impossible to investigate with data from one spacecraft.
Satellites can investigate the sun in two ways: they can get up close and personal, making in-situ measurements like NASA’s Parker Solar Probe does, or they can make more remote investigations like the Solar Orbiter. The Solar Orbiter studies the corona from around 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) away from the sun, while the Parker Solar Probe braves the blazing hot plasma of the sun as it passes around 4 million miles (6.4 million km) from the solar surface.
But, there is a trade-off between the two approaches.
Remote sensing can see broad details about the sun, but suffers when it comes to making observations of what physics is at play in coronal plasma. On the other hand, in-situ observations can measure that plasma in greater detail but tend to miss the bigger solar picture.
That means uniting the large-scale measurements of events on the sun from the Solar Orbiter with the detailed observations of the same phenomenon by the Parker Solar Probe could present us with the total picture of the sun with all intricate details filled in — the best of both worlds.
This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, however. To facilitate this team-up, the Parker Solar Probe would have to be within the field of view of one of the Solar Orbiter’s instruments as the two observe the sun from their relative positions. How scientists achieved the 'best of both worlds' to potentially solve a solar mystery
A team of astronomers, including Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) researcher Daniele Telloni, discovered that on June 1, 2022, the two solar observatories would be within touching distance of the desired orbital configuration to engage in such a team-up.
As the Solar Orbiter would be looking at the sun, the Parker Solar Probe would be just off to the side, only a little bit out of view of the ESA spacecraft’s Metis instrument — a device called a "coronagraph" that blocks out light from the photosphere to image the corona and is ideal for large-scale, distant observations. An artist's illustration of the sun, the Earth, the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter in one scene.
To perfectly line up the two spacecraft and get the Parker Solar Probe in view of Metis, the Solar Orbiter performed a 45-degree roll and was then pointed slightly away from the sun.
The data that was collected as a result of this well-planned maneuver authorized by the spacecraft’s operation team paid off, revealing turbulence that could indeed be transferring energy in the way solar physicists had theoretically predicted would be causing coronal heating.
The turbulence drives coronal heating in a way that is similar to what happens when coffee is stirred here on Earth. Energy is transferred to smaller scales by random movements in a fluid or gas — coffee and plasma — and this converts that energy to heat. In the case of the corona, plasma is magnetized, and that means stored magnetic energy can also be converted to heat.
The transfer of magnetic and movement or kinetic energy from larger to smaller scales is the very essence of this turbulence, and at the smallest scales, it allows the fluctuations to interact with individual particles, mostly positively charged protons, heating them.
That isn’t to say the mystery of coronal heating is "case closed," however. Solar scientists still need to confirm the mechanism that has been hinted at by these results and by the collaboration between the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Orbiter.
"This is a scientific first. This work represents a significant step forward in solving the coronal heating problem," Solar Orbiter Project Scientist Daniel Müller said.
The team’s research was published on Thursday (Sept. 14) in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
See the sun's atmosphere like never before thanks to a simple Solar Orbiter camera hack (video)
Tereza Pultarova September 6, 2023 A composite image of the sun consisting of the view of the sun's atmosphere as observed by the Solar Orbiter's EUI instrument and an image of the sun's disk taken by NASA's STEREO spacecraft.
The European Solar Orbiter spacecraft has peered into previously unexplored parts of the sun's atmosphere thanks to scientists who applied a simple hack to its main camera.
Solar Orbiter, launched in 2020, has delivered an impressive string of new discoveries during its three years studying the sun so far. The spacecraft, fitted with a suite of ten instruments, has proven to be especially capable of unraveling mysteries surrounding the sun's atmosphere. From the discovery of miniature flares, called campfires, in the spacecraft's first images to the recent finding of the likely mechanism driving the solar wind, Solar Orbiter has been consistently delivering ground-breaking science about the star at the center of our solar system. And more is to come.
Researchers behind one of Solar Orbiter's most powerful instruments, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) — a camera that studies the most energetic parts of ultraviolet light emitted by the sun — have now, for the first time, revealed a completely new way of using this powerful instrument.
This new mode of operation works similarly to an instrument called the coronagraph. The coronagraph is a device that shields the sun's disk to allow scientists to view the surrounding atmosphere that is up to a million times fainter than the blocked-out region. Though Solar Orbiter actually carries a coronagraph, called METIS, that instrument observes the solar atmosphere in visible light and in the lower-energy ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
But it is in the part of the light spectrum that is only visible to EUI that scientists can study the most intriguing phenomena that occur at the boundary between the sun's atmosphere and its surface.
"Physics is changing there, the magnetic structures are changing there, and we never really had a good look at it before," David Berghmans, EUI principal investigator and solar physicist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, said in the statement. "There must be some secrets in there that we can now find."
"I had the idea to just do it and see if it would work," Auchère said in a European Space Agency (ESA) statement. "It is actually a very simple modification to the instrument."
The scientists added a tiny protruding "thumb" to the instruments shutter. When the shutter opens only halfway, this thumb obscures the sun's disk, allowing EUI to see with great clarity the faint solar atmosphere.
In the video sequence obtained through the new imaging mode, scientists combined the Solar Orbiter's EUI view of the sun's atmosphere with an image of the star taken by NASA's STEREO mission, which orbits the sun at a slightly closer distance than Earth does. Solar Orbiter, for comparison, follows an elliptical orbit that periodically takes the spacecraft within the orbit of the solar system's innermost planet, Mercury.
By coincidence, STEREO happened to be looking at the sun from the same angle as Solar Orbiter was during the experiments with the new EUI imaging mode. That allowed scientists to combine the images and study the links between phenomena observed on the surface and in the atmosphere.
Observers on Earth can naturally see the outermost parts of the sun's atmosphere during total solar eclipses. The new EUI imaging mode, however, allows scientists to peer into regions of the atmosphere that are much closer to the sun's surface than what such rare events and conventional coronagraphs allow.
EUI images the sun in very high resolution, and although Earth-based telescopes with large mirrors can study the sun's surface in even greater resolution, they can't observe the fascinating high-energy, ultraviolet light that EUI sees. This is because that light gets absorbed by Earth's atmosphere before it reaches the telescopes' lenses. Solar Orbiter, on the other hand, travelling in the vacuum of space has a perfectly clear view of the star. The mission takes the closest ever images of the star and in a few years will take a look a the star's poles — the world's first. Scientists hope that studying the sun's polar regions up close will shed light on the mysterious forces driving the sun's magnetic field, which in turns drives the generation of sunspots, solar flares and eruptions.
