Ben Gilliland's blog

Voyager finds more surprises at the final frontier

Sun, 11/04/2012 - 17:30 — Ben Gilliland

Companionless in the dark vacuum of space and billions of kilometers from home, it was a lonely way to celebrate a birthday, but this is exactly how one pair of space-faring twins recently passed their 35th birthday.

When the Voyager probes were launched in 1977 no one could have suspected that 35 years later these rickety old probes would still be pushing forward the boundaries of science.

Initially designed to study the planetary systems of the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, Voyagers 1 have been traveling ever since – making new discoveries at every step of their epic journey.

Now, 35 years and 18.4 billion kilometers later, Voyager 1 is leaving our solar system behind it and passing into the dark, unexplored expanse of interstellar space.

For two years now, data beamed back from Voyager 1 (data that takes more than 16 hours to reach Earth) has hinted that the venerable machine might finally be passing the outer limits of our solar system. But things aren’t quite what scientists expected them to be.

Meet the microbial superheroes

Sun, 10/28/2012 - 11:24 — Ben Gilliland

We don’t like microbes. We associate them with disease and death and spend a lot of time and money trying to eradicate them from our lives (and in doing so create super-strains that are many times more deadly).

But many types of microbe can be helpful (your body is more bacteria than human and couldn’t survive without them) and some may actually hold the key to fighting global warming, cleaning up pollution and even help cure cancer.

The snappily-named Geobacter sulfurreducens, for example, has an exciting double party trick.

Under certain conditions, this handy little bug can grow special hairs, called pili, that can zap uranium from polluted water supplies and, if attached to an electrode, can be used to generate electricity. In fact Nasa plan to employ the energy generating talents of this particular bug to help power their next generation of miniature robotic rovers.

Another strain of pollution-busting bacteria, called Alcanivorax, can break down the hydrocarbons in crude oil and is hard at work right now at the Deepwater Horizon spill, helping to mop up the mess.

Here are three ‘helpful’ microbes with the potential to change our lives for the better.

The Universe: Just how big is big?

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 10:41 — Ben Gilliland

At Cosm, we often discuss big things (planets, stars, galaxies etc) and we get lots of Emails asking ‘just how big is big?’

Well, it’s really a simple question of scale...

What’s wrong with gravity?

Sun, 10/14/2012 - 15:54 — Ben Gilliland

With the Higgs Boson in the bank, it’s time for the Large Hadron Collider to tackle physics’ next great unanswered question: why is gravity so weak?

On the face of it, gravity would seem to be a pretty impressive force – after all, it is responsible for the formation of planets, stars and galaxies.

Earth and all the other planets of our solar system are held on an invisible leash and forced by gravity to orbit the Sun. But compared to the other fundamental forces, gravity is really very puny.

In fact, it is so weak you would need to increase its strength by 1,000billion, billion, billion, billion times to bring it in line with the strength of the other forces.

While Wile E. Coyote can attest to the power of gravity every time he plunges from a cartoon cliff, when you compare it with electromagnetism you can see just how weak it is.

Looking beyond Mars for alien life

Sun, 10/07/2012 - 14:04 — Ben Gilliland

Mars dominates the search for life beyond Earth, but a growing number of scientists believe our efforts should be directed towards a world that, on the face it, seems a most unlikely candidate for extraterrestrial life – Enceladus.

Above: Saturn’s sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, is tiny (measuring just 500km across) and is more than 1.4 billion km away from the Sun – both facts that would seem to count against it as a potential habit for life. This image was taken Nasa's Saturn probe, Cassini. Enceladus is in the foreground with Saturn’s rings behind it and looming in the distance is Saturn’s largest moon, Titan

For life (as we know it) to evolve and survive, it requires three essential ingredients – water, energy and organic chemicals. But how can a tiny frozen moon so far from the Sun possibly possess any of these ingredients?

Leafing summer behind: Why do trees change colour in autumn?

Tue, 10/02/2012 - 08:22 — Ben Gilliland

Let's face it, the summer of 2012 was a bit rubbish – a pitifully grey and horribly wet period that was only very sparingly punctuated by spells of Sun. Most of us have moved on and put the 'summer' behind us and it seems Mother Nature is ready to do the same and, like Harrods' unwelcome early Christmas displays, she has started to showcase her ‘next season’ collection.

The nations trees are slowly making an appearance on the autumn catwalk, modelling the 'red and yellow' foliage collection.

But just why do trees go to the effort of changing their viridian-hued summer wardrobes for those golden, crimson, purple and yellow autumnal gowns only to dump them en masse on the nation’s rail network just weeks later? Believe it or not, no one really knows.