Strawberries in space

You’re speeding through the icy depths of space, millions of miles from Earth, when you realise you’d like a snack to remind you of the long summers of home. What do you do? Bizarrely, the answer might be as simple as going to pick some strawberries.

Butterfly colours copied

Researchers have made an accurate copy of a butterfly’s wing, right down to the microscopic structures that give a butterfly its dazzling colours. The team of researchers from America and Spain have come up with a new technique to copy the intricate detail of the wing without distorting it in the process. The work could result in new materials with unique light-bending properties.

Butterflies - better engineers than people? Image: Hypothesis Now

The beautiful iridescent sheen of a beetle carapace or butterfly wing is caused by microscopic structures that bend and reflect light in a certain way, rather than relying on a normal colour pigment such as we find in the skin of other animals. The structures are made of thin layers of a material called chitin, which all insects use to make their protective outer shell, and are built on such a small scale that we can’t copy their construction with our existing technology.

So the researchers did the next best thing – they made a near-perfect replica. They coated the surface of the wing with a substance called chalcogenide glass, before burning away the wing with an acid which dissolves chitin. When the wing had been destroyed, the researchers found the remaining glass had accurately copied its structure and, most importantly, its optical properties.

This area of research is known as biomimetics, which aim to copy nature’s designs and adapt them to improve human technology. The chitin structures of a butterefly wing bend light in fantastic ways to produce a range of colours and, if we can learn how to produce accurate copies, the researchers think it could lead future gadgets like more efficient solar panels or tiny fly-eye lenses for mobile phones, endoscopes or surveillance cameras.

And in case you were wondering, the researchers didn’t kill any butterflies to test their new process. The research paper clearly states they used a dead butterfly they found in a park in Madrid!

Paper reference: doi: 10.1088/1748-3182/4/3/034001

Writ Large on the Nano-Scale

Nanotechnology – the science of the incredibly small – may be the future of electronics, biotechnology and healthcare, but there are still many hurdles to overcome before it can deliver on its promises. One of the most important problems facing nanotechnology is how to manipulate things less than one millionth of a metre in size!

Nano-art? These drawings are only 150 millionths of a metre across. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Now, American researchers have developed the “NanoPen” – a device that allows them to draw patterns of nanoparticles in seconds. Although other researchers have worked out how to create nano-scale patterns their methods take a long time and require high temperatures and light intensities to work. The new technique works quickly, and at low light intensities, making it much easier to sketch a nano-masterpiece.

NanoPen works by using a pattern of light projected onto a “photoconductive” surface. Where light hits the surface it makes it more conductive to an electrical current. The change in conductivity alters the properties of the surface, creating tiny forces which pull the nanoparticles into the light and anchor them in place, creating the pattern.

The researchers believe the technique could be used to draw miniature electronic circuits, build nano-structures, or create DNA microarrays – a vital tool for the biological sciences – quickly and cheaply.

Of course, to test the technique the researchers used gold nanoparticles to draw the logos of their funder (the NIH) and the university where they work (CAL, or the University of California), as you can see above.

Moon Shots

The Apollo 14 landing site.

This picture, taken last week by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the site of the Apollo14 moon landing. As far as I’m aware, these are first ever detailed images of the Apollo landing sites, and they only represent a rough test of the imaging capabilities of NASA’s latest lunar mission. Future images should be impressive indeed!

Visible across the centre of the picture are the tracks left by the astronauts as they walked between the Apollo 14 lander on the right (see that small rectangular shadow?) to a small pile of equipment on the left. If it’s not obvious, I’ve included the magnified and annotated version, below.

See it yet?

The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) website includes images of the other Apollo landing sites, including Apollo 11.

These images are only a taste of things to come. The LRO hasn’t yet reached its final position in orbit around the moon. When it does so in August, it will be able to take much more detailed pictures to help NASA find landing site and identify valuable resources – both vital if we are ever to return to the moon.

Credit for both images is (of course):  NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre/University of Arizona

Out of this world

As you may have heard, Monday 20th July 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of man’s first landing on another world – the moon. To celebrate this achievement (and jump on the media bandwagon!), Hypothesis Now will be running a series of space-themed stories over the next few days.

NASA now sees the moon as a stepping stone out of the Earth’s gravity well and onwards to the rest of the solar system. But what do we know of our nearest planetary neighbours? A few recent news stories show just how far our understanding of worlds beyond our own has come:

Missions to Mars

The surface of Mars. Such a welcoming place...*

Mars, the enigmatic Red Planet, is the latest focus of international space research and exploration efforts. A new study has provided vital measurements of the infrared absorbance of different types of soils that might be found on Mars. Using this information, scientists will be able to make accurate predictions of Martian surface conditions from instruments in orbit, which will be vital when future missions to the Red Planet look for areas where water, or even life, may be hidden. NASA’s next Mars mission – the Mars Science Laboratory – is due for launch in 2011.

Visions of Venus

An extremely expensive firework? The Venus Express is sent on it's way **

Last week saw the announcement that the European Space Agency’s Venus Express probe has found evidence that Venus once had an ocean and plate tectonics. Using infrared to “see” through the thick Venusian atmosphere, the probe mapped the surface of Venus’ southern hemisphere – the reflected infrared light suggested it was composed of granite rock – which can only form under the influence of both water and plate tectonics.

In terms of size, Venus is the most Earth-like planet in the solar system, yet in many other respects it differs markedly. The planet is wrapped in thick yellow clouds containing sulphuric acid and a runaway greenhouse effect sees surface temperatures reaching 460^oC! These new results will help astronomers understand why the planets have ended up with such contrasting climates.

Colliding Comets

Comets: Responsible for life on Earth?***

3.8 billion years ago the Earth and Moon were caught in a barrage of asteroids and comets caused, it is now thought, by the rearrangement of the gas giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The impacts on Earth altered the environment, making it more suitable for the emergence of life.

A new model suggests the rearrangement of the major planets flung many comets inwards from the cold, dark edge of interstellar space. The comets collided with asteroids, dislodging them from their stable orbits and sending fragments of both towards Earth. The results shed light on the last dramatic rearrangement of our solar system and tell scientists much more about how solar systems like ours may have formed.

*Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University.

**Image credit: Credit ESA/STARSEM-S. CORVAJA.

***Image credit: Miketsukunibito. Used under GDFl License.