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| Comparing Jupiter with Jupiter-like planets that orbit other stars can teach us about those distant worlds, and reveal new insights about our own solar system's formation and evolution. (Illustration) Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration
Our galaxy is home to a bewildering variety of Jupiter-like worlds: hot ones, cold ones, giant versions of our own giant, pint-sized pretenders only half as big around.
Astronomers say that in our galaxy alone, a billion or more such Jupiter-like worlds could be orbiting stars other than our sun. And we can use them to gain a better understanding of our solar system and our galactic environment, including the prospects for finding life.
It turns out the inverse is also true -- we can turn our instruments and probes to our own backyard, and view Jupiter as if it were an exoplanet to learn more about those far-off worlds. The best-ever chance to do this is now, with Juno, a NASA probe the size of a basketball court, which arrived at Jupiter in July to begin a series of long, looping orbits around our solar system's largest planet. Juno is expected to capture the most detailed images of the gas giant ever seen. And with a suite of science instruments, Juno will plumb the secrets beneath Jupiter's roiling atmosphere.
It will be a very long time, if ever, before scientists who study exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- get the chance to watch an interstellar probe coast into orbit around an exo-Jupiter, dozens or hundreds of light-years away. But if they ever do, it's a safe bet the scene will summon echoes of Juno.
The Priestess Second Saga Returns Monday August 29th as The Valley Knight begins his quest to thwart an army of desert warriors descending upon the Valley Real. Their target is the Priestess herself! As this is a mortal threat, the goddess within the Priestess cannot interfere even with all her vast power. With the help of Little Fish, the Knight has reached the place where the great host has gathered as they begin their genocidal war. But what can one man do against an army? Without Little Fish's power and the stalwart sword arm of the Aesir Chief Svengald, somehow the Valley Knight must move an entire nation to war to prevent the destruction of his wife the Priestess and all he holds dear. One man alone or not, whomever stands in the path of one who is beloved by a goddess-made-woman and Death itself best be prepared for a man who will stop at nothing to protect that which he loves! Read the week long event, 'The Priestess: Stones, Love and War'....
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| Image Source: Simon Kneebone – cartoonist and illustrator |
Topics: Astrophysics, Cosmology, SETI, Space Exploration, Star Trek
Xenophobia is something we experience among ourselves from others with five fingers, five toes; slight differences in frames and shades of Melanin. We've never encountered - as far as we know - an intelligence beyond our world similar to us due to the laws of physics, chemistry and biology but distinctly: alien.
Whatever we as a species ascribe to as deity for example, MUST by design favor our particular human tribe. We create echo chambers to reinforce our own confirmation-bias about ourselves, in the modern vernacular "creating our own realities." Any news outside this special nurturing bubble is usually opposed with breathtaking, sometimes violent cognitive dissonance to maintain this special nurturing cocoon.
What exactly WILL we do when some species a little older, surviving its own M.A.D. ideology answers our calls in the dark? Our history - both current and documented - doesn't bode well towards a rational or civilized response.
The short-lived Star Trek: Enterprise seemed to be hitting its stride with the episodes Demons and Terra Prime before its cancellation; our current clamor for nationalism and purity makes them both quite prescient. Enterprise showed a humanity at the cusp of establishing a United Federation of Planets. They initially instead showed old prejudices, and our disdain for being put out of our self-appointed special place in the universe, post surviving Trek's fictional human extinction-level events of World War III and war with the Xindi. Before the imagined utopias of Kirk or Picard and the current xenophobia displayed among our own species, we likely still have some growing to do.
Abstract
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering about this at the very beginning of a long era in which stellar luminosity warms many planets, and by our best models, continues to provide equally good opportunities for intelligent life to evolve. By simple Bayesian reasoning, if, as we believe, intelligent life forms have the same propensity to evolve later on other planets as we had to evolve on ours, it follows that they will likely not pass through a similar wondering stage in their evolution. This suggests that the future holds some kind of interstellar communication that will serve to inform newly evolved intelligent life forms that they are not alone before they become curious.
Physics arXiv: Odds for an enlightened rather than barren future, David Haussler
Hello, BSFS Members!
I have a giveaway going on for one of my short stories. Here is the link to the giveaway: http://joeyspen.com/cardinal-rule-one-year-anniversary-giveaway/
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| James O'Brien for Quanta Magazine |
Topics: Cosmology, History, Modern Physics, Richard Feynman
Horror vacui: "nature abhors a vacuum." (attributed to Aristotle)
Richard Feynman looked tired when he wandered into my office. It was the end of a long, exhausting day in Santa Barbara, sometime around 1982. Events had included a seminar that was also a performance, lunchtime grilling by eager postdocs, and lively discussions with senior researchers. The life of a celebrated physicist is always intense. But our visitor still wanted to talk physics. We had a couple of hours to fill before dinner.
I described to Feynman what I thought were exciting if speculative new ideas such as fractional spin and anyons. Feynman was unimpressed, saying: “Wilczek, you should work on something real.” (Anyons are real, but that’s a topic for another post.)
Looking to break the awkward silence that followed, I asked Feynman the most disturbing question in physics, then as now: “There’s something else I’ve been thinking a lot about: Why doesn’t empty space weigh anything?”
Feynman, normally as quick and lively as they come, went silent. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him look wistful. Finally he said dreamily, “I once thought I had that one figured out. It was beautiful.” And then, excited, he began an explanation that crescendoed in a near shout: “The reason space doesn’t weigh anything, I thought, is because there’s nothing there!”
Vacuum, in modern usage, is what you get when you remove everything that you can, whether practically or in principle. We say a region of space “realizes vacuum” if it is free of all the different kinds of particles and radiation we know about (including, for this purpose, dark matter — which we know about in a general way, though not in detail). Alternatively, vacuum is the state of minimum energy.
Intergalactic space is a good approximation to a vacuum.
Void, on the other hand, is a theoretical idealization. It means nothingness: space without independent properties, whose only role, we might say, is to keep everything from happening in the same place. Void gives particles addresses, nothing more.
Aristotle famously claimed that “Nature abhors a vacuum,” but I’m pretty sure a more correct translation would be “Nature abhors a void.” Isaac Newton appeared to agree when he wrote:
...that one Body may act upon another at a Distance thro’ a Vacuum, without the Mediation of any thing else, by and through which their Action and Force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an Absurdity, that I believe no Man who has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.
But in Newton’s masterpiece, the Principia, the players are bodies that exert forces on one another. Space, the stage, is an empty receptacle. It has no life of its own. In Newtonian physics, vacuum is a void.
Quanta Magazine: How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space, Frank Wilczek
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| Zika Mosquito - Internet Search |
Topics: Biology, Climate Change, Global Warming, Research
I recorded something on my DVR titled "Global Weirding," which I think is far more descriptive of the phenomena. "Warming" tends to imply extreme heat like the Sahara Desert ALL the time. It's more like what you've grown comfortable expecting...don't. Sensational blockbusters like "The Day After Tomorrow" don't help in our impatient point-and-click attention-deficit patience either. Instead of a sudden dystopian disaster, it should be thought of as a slow but steady train wreck.
Aerosol threats have been expected from our changing climate. This new threat is currently growing and concerning for many, like me that have relatives in harms way on the Gulf Coast and Florida. Thankfully, our stalwart, "science-friendly" representatives are on the case, tying battling related birth defects to eliminating abortion. Infants will be safely born on the Gulf Coast (as Latin America grapples with their own previous conservative views and legal prohibitions) sadly, with smaller heads and shortened lifespans. It is an oxymoron; a contradiction in terms and "values."
One of the top U.S. public health officials on Sunday warned that the mosquito-borne Zika virus could extend its reach across the U.S. Gulf Coast after officials last week confirmed it as active in the popular tourist destination of Miami Beach.
The possibility of transmission in Gulf States such as Louisiana and Texas will likely fuel concerns that the virus, which has been shown to cause the severe birth defect known as microcephaly, could spread across the continental United States, even though officials have played down such an outcome.
Concern has mounted since confirmation that Zika has expanded into a second region of the tourist hub of Miami-Dade County in Florida. Miami's Wynwood arts neighborhood last month became the site of the first locally transmitted cases of Zika in the continental United States.
"It would not be surprising we would see additional cases perhaps in other Gulf Coast states," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the allergy and infectious diseases unit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said in an interview on Sunday morning with ABC News.
Scientific American:
Zika Poised for Possible Spread across U.S. Gulf, Chris Prentice
What's up BSFS members? This is Ricardo Holliman; as you know I am working on an animated series called Kollege Kids with the new addition of Professor Holmes. This picture is the rough draft stages of the show. I wanted to do this blog for inspiring creatives who are starting out and thinking of giving up because they don't see any major progress or results. When you work on a team oriented project vs a self oriented one; you tend to get criticism you don't want to hear. You want to throw a temper tantrum like a three year old when you don't get your way.
In reality compared to industry standards; you don't measure up. You get so burned out that you put your illustrations in the attic for a while. Your team abandons you because they feel you are incompetent for the task. What do you do when this happens? The answer is in plain sight. Perfect your technique and craft. Go up in the attic and grab your illustrations. Go and watch the Behind The Scenes of your favorite animation show or movie you grew watching. Approach it from an industry standards so you know what role you play in projects.
Like me; my strong points are in visuals. My role as a visual/animation coordinator is character & background creation; graphic design; prop master; coordinating frames and key-frames for an animation; video production & editing. I am getting in writing and producing however my strong points are in visuals. When you revisit the attic and you are not facing any pressures working with a team who wants things in a timely manner. Your free time should be in perfecting your craft and learn new way of doing things.
Read blogs, join groups, and get feedback from professionals who are doing what you do. Take the constructive criticism like a creative professionals; be open to new ideas and programs. Make this an self oriented project and whatever you create. Write a story behind those rough drafts of your illustrations. Following industry standards will help you set up a template how to do things. It will help to show how professionals take constructive criticism vs an ameteur.
It is two years later; your team calls you up asking you the progress of your work. They see the new revamped version and they are very eager for you to rejoin the team. This is what happened to me for the past two years. You have to perfect your technique when no one is looking. You have to put work in even if you have two jobs. All you need is two hours out of a day to do so. If this is your passion; you will make time when you feel like you have no time. Perfect your technique and windows of opportunities will open for you. Give it time and you see major results.
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| APS/Alan Stonebraker Distant partners. In this sketch, two cesium atoms in high Rydberg states form a weakly bound molecule about 1 micrometer across, comparable to the size of typical bacteria. |
Topics: Atomic Physics, Particle Physics, Quantum Computer, Rydberg Atom
Strongly bound diatomic molecules such as H2 or O2 are less than a nanometer across. Surprisingly, scientists have been able to create two-atom molecules more than a thousand times larger by using exotic atoms that attract one another only very weakly. Now, a pair of physicists have calculated what makes these “macrodimers” stable, and they have verified their predictions by creating micrometer-sized molecules containing two cesium atoms. The macrodimers could have applications in quantum computing.
Interest in these macromolecules stems from the challenges they pose to conventional understanding of molecules and bonds. More than a decade ago, physicists predicted that molecules with interatomic distances as large as 1 micrometer might be created by using a pair of atoms in so-called Rydberg states. These are atoms in which a single outer-shell electron has been excited to a high quantum state so that it orbits far away from the nucleus. Although Rydberg atoms are unstable, they can live as long as tens of microseconds, and experimenters have succeeded in creating macrodimers from them, confirming their existence indirectly by destroying them and detecting specific spectroscopic signatures [1].
APS Focus: Giant Molecule Made from Two Atoms, Mark Buchanan
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| Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine As neutrinos and antineutrinos change flavors they may illuminate the differences between matter and antimatter. |
Topics: Atomic Physics, Neutrinos, Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics
(July 28, 2016) - In the same underground observatory in Japan where, 18 years ago, neutrinos were first seen oscillating from one “flavor” to another — a landmark discovery that earned two physicists the 2015 Nobel Prize — a tiny anomaly has begun to surface in the neutrinos’ oscillations that could herald an answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics: why matter dominates over antimatter in the universe.
The anomaly, detected by the T2K experiment, is not yet pronounced enough to be sure of, but it and the findings of two related experiments “are all pointing in the same direction,” said Hirohisa Tanaka of the University of Toronto, a member of the T2K team who presented the result to a packed audience in London earlier this month.
“A full proof will take more time,” said Werner Rodejohann, a neutrino specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg who was not involved in the experiments, “but my and many others’ feeling is that there is something real here.”
The long-standing puzzle to be solved is why we and everything we see is matter-made. More to the point, why does anything — matter or antimatter — exist at all? The reigning laws of particle physics, known as the Standard Model, treat matter and antimatter nearly equivalently, respecting (with one known exception) so-called charge-parity, or “CP,” symmetry: For every particle decay that produces, say, a negatively charged electron, the mirror-image decay yielding a positively charged antielectron occurs at the same rate. But this cannot be the whole story. If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were produced during the Big Bang, equal amounts should have existed shortly thereafter. And since matter and antimatter annihilate upon contact, such a situation would have led to the wholesale destruction of both, resulting in an empty cosmos.
Quanta Magazine: Neutrinos Hint of Matter-Antimatter Rift, Natalie Wolchover
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| Credit: Chris Gash |
Topics: Economy, Education, Politics, STEM
"We hold these truths to be self-evident": the rest is a contentious matter, for at the time the revered words were written, the rest of the sentence "all men were [not] created equal," Native Americans, women and my ancestors chief among them.
"Self-evident": this is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father and scientist. It was an edit from Thomas Jefferson's original "sacred and undeniable," a reflection of the scientific revolution at the time, homage to Sir Isaac Newton and "the analytic empiricism of Franklin's close friend David Hume." The American experiment, though far then and now from perfect, would be based not on divine right or dynastic succession, but reason, facts and currently bereft in the public sphere: logic.
It is incredible that Scientific American would take such a stance, but it has to be taken. There are elements of our society that promote "creating their own reality"; the backlash to the Cosmos reboot; Creationism versus Evolutionary Biology; the Flat Earth Society; Young Earth Creationism with more dangerous, unscientific thought on the horizon for exploitation by cynical politicians or the latest flimflam artist.
This year's election is unique as one political party has nominated such a flimflam artist as its candidate, that has made no bones about his hostility to science: "climate change is a plot by the Chinese against American manufacturing." As the New York Daily News opined on his loose 2nd amendment comments: "this isn't funny anymore."
This is an assault on fact versus fantasy, science versus psychobabble; sanity versus insanity. Flimflam's persona non grata interviewed on Alex Jones - the KING of conspiracy provocateurs - as a casual search of YouTube on his rant compilations attests, many right wing pundits have, as he's complained - mainstreamed his views in the public sphere without crediting him, only nourishing a faux ecosystem around Mr. Flimflam. FF sometimes quotes him verbatim, which Jones says admirably is "surreal."
What is surreal is that as a nation, we've crossed the Rubicon. What started as a political tactic to - as Barry Goldwater said "hunt where the ducks are," getting votes from a disgruntled south that couldn't take the changes the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Fair Housing Act (1968) ushered in, the Dixiecrat ducks came: John Birch Society cum Southern Strategy cum Reagan Welfare Queens cum Faux News cum Birther Movement cum Alt-Right Movement mainstreamed in an echo chamber. Like a cult, they created their own realities. When Bob Jones University's policy against miscegenation (interracial dating) no longer worked selling themselves as a Christian institution, they found a suitable substitute in abortion opposition. The GOP's platform opposing gay rights - despite the American Psychiatric Association's removing it from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - is evidenced by its insistence on the quackery of "reparative therapy."
What is surreal is our measure and substantiation of information as citizenry, and how we make decisions as a republic respecting reality, facts, data, evidence, REAL THINGS: what truths are self-evident, or quackery we'll follow over a cliff.
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone." Rod Serling, Season One Intro.
“If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.”
—Richard Feynman
Four years ago in these pages, writer Shawn Otto warned our readers of the danger of a growing antiscience current in American politics. “By turning public opinion away from the antiauthoritarian principles of the nation's founders,” Otto wrote, “the new science denialism is creating an existential crisis like few the country has faced before.”
Otto wrote those words in the heat of a presidential election race that now seems quaint by comparison to the one the nation now finds itself in. As if to prove his point, one of the two major party candidates for the highest office in the land has repeatedly and resoundingly demonstrated a disregard, if not outright contempt, for science. Donald Trump also has shown an authoritarian tendency to base policy arguments on questionable assertions of fact and a cult of personality.
Americans have long prided themselves on their ability to see the world for what it is, as opposed to what someone says it is or what most people happen to believe. In one of the most powerful lines in American literature, Huck Finn says: “It warn't so. I tried it.” A respect for evidence is not just a part of the national character. It goes to the heart of the country's particular brand of democratic government. When the founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, scientist and inventor, wrote arguably the most important line in the Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident”—they were asserting the fledgling nation's grounding in the primacy of reason based on evidence.
Scientific American:
Donald Trump’s Lack of Respect for Science Is Alarming, The Editors
#P4TC: Missing In Action...
If you have kids, any age, they'll love this. Plus, as a bonus, anyone who orders the comic gets a free, digital, copy of the prequel. That's the best deal for $2.99 you're going to get in your next three lifetimes.
And, yes, much to your surprise, I wrote it.
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| Image Source: Astronomy Magazine |
Topics: Astronomy, Eclipse, Heliophysics
In addition to my youngest son's 24th birthday this Sunday, Astronomy gives a guide to a total eclipse that will be seen clearly in Kentucky next year when he turns 25 (and his insurance rates drop like a STONE). Tomorrow, it's an "almost Eclipse" according to Time and Date. Next year it will be the first total eclipse in 38 years. Since we're in different states, it's quite a coincidence to coincide with his birthday. I hope we both get to see it.
From "25 facts you should know about the August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse" (you can get to it at the link below):
1. This will be the first total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. in 38 years. The last one occurred February 26, 1979. Unfortunately, not many people saw it because it clipped just five states in the Northwest and the weather for the most part was bleak. Before that one, you have to go back to March 7, 1970.
2. A solar eclipse is a lineup of the Sun, the Moon, and Earth. The Moon, directly between the Sun and Earth, casts a shadow on our planet. If you’re in the dark part of that shadow (the umbra), you’ll see a total eclipse. If you’re in the light part (the penumbra), you’ll see a partial eclipse.
3. A solar eclipse happens at New Moon. The Moon has to be between the Sun and Earth for a solar eclipse to occur. The only lunar phase when that happens is New Moon.
Astronomy: Prepare for Totality - August 21, 2017
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| Image Source: insideHPC |
Topics: Materials Science, Metamaterials, Science, Research
Fans of Superman surely recall how the Man of Steel used immense heat and pressure generated by his bare hands to form a diamond out of a lump of coal.
The tribologists — scientists who study friction, wear, and lubrication — and computational materials scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory will probably never be mistaken for superheroes. However, they recently applied the same principles and discovered a revolutionary diamond-like film of their own that is generated by the heat and pressure of an automotive engine.
The discovery of this ultra-durable, self-lubricating tribofilm — a film that forms between moving surfaces — was first reported yesterday in the journal Nature. It could have profound implications for the efficiency and durability of future engines and other moving metal parts that can be made to develop self-healing, diamond-like carbon (DLC) tribofilms.
"This is a very unique discovery, and one that was a little unexpected," said Ali Erdemir, the Argonne Distinguished Fellow who leads the team. "We have developed many types of diamond-like carbon coatings of our own, but we've never found one that generates itself by breaking down the molecules of the lubricating oil and can actually regenerate the tribofilm as it is worn away."
ANL: Argonne discovery yields self-healing diamond-like carbon, Greg Cunningham
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| Molecular geometry of plastic deformation. Subplot (a): snapshots of the deformation mechanisms, pure CF, for increasing strain. Fibrillar yield is characterized by intermolecular slip (see the circles highlighting a local area of repeated molecular slip). Slip leads to the formation of regions with lower material density. Subplot (b): snapshots of the deformation mechanisms, mineralized collagen fibrils, for increasing strain. Slip initiates at the interface between hydroxyapatite particles and tropocollagen molecules. Slip reduces the density, leading to the formation of nanoscale voids. Courtesy of Nanotechnology |
Topics: Biology, Materials Science, Carbon Nanotubes, Nanotechnology
Nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, are often added to polymers and composites to enhance their strength. The extreme mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes suggest an obvious rationale behind this approach. However, as Markus Buehler and Isabelle Su at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US highlight in their recent topical review, the behaviour that renders nanomaterials soft or strong can be far from trivial, often involving interactions on a range of scales from macrostructures to nanostructures and – in the case of biostructures – the amino acids and proteins they are built from.
Bone is a classic example of excellent natural material engineering. It primarily consists of tropocollagen fibrils – which would be too soft to support the weight of the skeleton under its daily loads – and hydroxyapatite, a stiff but fragile material prone to fracture. However, the alliance of these two imperfect candidates is an extremely tough, lightweight and robust material.
Based on a simple molecular model of mineralized collagen fibrils, Buehler showed that, as might be expected, the stiffness of mineralized fibrils lies somewhere between the two extremes of the component materials, with as more recent studies reveal, the mineral components bearing up to four times the stress of the collagen fibrils. However, in addition his 2007 study pointed out that the mineralization increases the energy dissipation during deformation. As he explains in his report, “The fibrillar toughening mechanism increases the resistance to fracture by forming large local yield regions around crack-like defects, a mechanism that protects the integrity of the entire structure by allowing for localized failure.”
Nanotechweb:
Nanomechanics – the whole is more than the sum of its parts, Anna Demming
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| Plastic fantastic? Quasicrystal deformations and bending observed |
Topics: Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Quasicrystal
Caveat emptor: I did notice one comment on the article at the main site referencing "Laplace Pressure" as a source explaining how quasicrystal structures become pliable at the nanoscale. The link (I've provided) is to a Wikipedia page. In blogging, one can play kind of "fast and loose" with reference links if trying to make a point as in an essay, but I wouldn't in general use an open source page with the subtitle "A Free Encyclopedia that everyone can edit" referring to a science article. Out of curiosity, I did look it up on Scholarpedia: "the peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia, where knowledge is curated by communities of experts." The search term Laplace Pressure came up with four links that did not seem to relate to a nanoscale phenomena.
When shrunk to the nanoscale, quasicrystals become plastic. That is the finding of an international team of researchers, which says that its results could potentially widen the material's applications. Quasicrystals – materials in which the atoms show long-range order but have no finite, periodically repeated unit cell – have fascinated materials scientists ever since their Nobel-prize-winning discovery in 1984. Their practical use, however, has been limited by their brittleness.
Conventional crystals plastically deform through dislocations in their lattice that can allow individual unit cells to swap places relatively easily. This makes some crystals, such as pure metals like copper and gold, highly ductile. In quasicrystals, however, there are no unit cells, so it takes more energy to move dislocations. "Normally, the dislocations in quasicrystals are quite mobile at high temperatures," says materials-scientist Yu Zou of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. "However, below 500 °C, the dislocations are not that mobile, so this can make the quasicrystal very brittle."
Physics World: Brittle quasicrystals become ductile at the nanoscale, Tim Wogan
The Consortium ship drew nearer, its missiles and energy batteries subjecting the Horseman to a merciless barrage.
The hammering force of the enemy's assault reverberated through every section of the ship, fissuring decks and bulkheads. Explosive power surges erupted from bridge consoles, multiple shockwaves sweeping Mingana off her feet, sending her head first to the deck.
She blacked out. When she came to seconds later, Povich was kneeling over her, his face fraught with concern. “Captain!”
Mingana glanced about with disoriented eyes. The bridge was a smoke-clogged shambles. Crew members not wounded or dead labored intensively to maintain besieged systems. A few lay curled on the deck, traumatized and oblivious to the screaming chaos around them.
Povich helped Mingana to her feet.
The captain dabbed at a patch of wetness above her left brow, and came away with blood on her fingers.
“Batteries are down. We did all we could,” said Povich.
Mingana shook her head despairingly. “But it wasn't enough. We failed.”
The raucous suddenly ceased and an alien image popped up on one of the few working interface screens on the bridge. The alien's face was broad and jowly with a snout nose, wide mouth and dark, sunken pits for eyes.
The species was different, but Mingana could almost smell the stench of Consortium arrogance wafting through the screen.
“Captain Mingana. Are you alive?” The alien inquired, sounding almost bored.
Mingana stepped a bit unsteadily to the interface. “I'm alive. You must be the captain of the ship I'm trying to annihilate.”
“I am,” replied the alien.
“Good. Do me a favor. Bring your ship to a complete stop so I can ram it.”
The Consortium captain tilted his head a gesture that would have been taken as curiosity in a human. “Amazing and commendable is your ability to spout levity in your final seconds. If your treachery did not result in the destruction of a Consortium ship, with all hands lost, I would be content to simply capture your vessel and enslave you and your crew.”
“Then why are you talking to me?” Mingana asked.
“I wish to inquire about the Duke.”
“The duke is dead.” Mingana raised her chin. “By my hand. In fact I'm responsible for attacking your ships. It was me alone. No one else. My crew was not aware of my Resistance affiliation. Kill me. Spare my crew.”
After a lengthy pause, the Consortium captain spoke. “Trading a single life for the hundreds snuffed out in your devious attack? The death of Duke Rassellin alone is worth three times that many lives. Not a fair balance, Captain. Not a fair balance at all. Goodbye, Captain.”
The alien's image faded away.
Mingana shut her eyes, whispered a farewell to her family and waited.
“Captain, another ship is inbound,” a sensor specialist announced breathily.
Mingana's eyes snapped open.
Povich rushed to a working tactical interface and his face lit up. “It's a Calaar war cruiser!”
***
A second Calaar cruiser flashed out of jump space. Both ships opened fire on the Consortium vessel. Missiles, interspersed with pulsing slashes of point range fusion beams, drenched the enemy ship in a throbbing star hot cauldron.
The Consortium ship launched a spread of missiles and attempted to withdraw. A small percentage of Consortium missiles weaved through the Calaar ships' defensive screen to strike home. But they did little damage. The Consortium ship's objective was to escape. But the Calaar cruisers could not allow that...not with an orbiting city in jeopardy. Even if the Calaar leaders had been warned of the very imminent danger to their lives and evacuated, the Consortium captain could still strike the city out of cruel spite.
Huge explosions chipped away at the Consortium ship's hull. The ship veered off course, its shield reduced to impotence beneath a punishing barrage. Less than a minute later, the ship stuttered to a full stop. The Calaar cruisers ceased fire and took up flanking positions beside their crippled quarry.
***
Mingana witnessed the confrontation on an interface screen and plopped down in her chair, her body sagging with relief.
Povich stood next to his captain, clearly fatigued. “That was a very timely intervention.”
Mingana nodded. “Very timely.”
The Consortium ship surrendered. Mingana had to commend the Calaar for their restraint in not finishing it off. She sure as hell would have. That's why the Calaar were more civilized. Humanity had so much to learn from them.
“I told you no happy farewells,” Mingana said to Povich.
Her Second broke out in weary laughter.
***
Justine Mingana stood on the balcony of the tallest tower in Kitroor, a city located on a Calaar colony world called Ir't. Even as she reveled in the beauty and grandeur of this alien vista, her mind lingered billions of light years away, on a far less important world. Earth remained a constant and vivid picture in her thoughts. She missed her family so much, her heart ached. When she looked up, her longing for home intensified. A thousand Calaar warships of all sizes and classes filled the aquamarine sky. They were part of a grand fleet tasked with retaking Earth.
She spotted the Horseman directly above, resplendent in all of its refurbished glory. Eight months ago, after being rescued by those Calaar ships, she held very little hope that the Horseman could be salvaged for more than a few spare parts. Her hosts on I'rt had exposed their human guests to the gracious, compassionate kindness typical of the Calaar. They had also kept Mingana informed of developments on Earth. She was saddened to hear that Admiral Casey was killed in a U.N. airstrike, and that Ot^^^ had been captured and executed a week later, putting a nail in the Resistance's coffin. She was consoled that the Consortium mass destruction weapon carried on her ship was in Calaar hands. The weapon was a singularity-generating device. A planet-bombardment missile would have been its delivery system. Had the device been deployed, in concert with those launched by the two Consortium ships, a vast orbital city would have been snared in an artificial black hole and reduced to the size of a pinhead. Mingana shuddered at the sheer scale of a such a catastrophe.
Her eyes narrowed to fierce slits. Soon the Consortium occupiers and their human lackeys would be receiving their just desserts. The Calaar did not promise that the fight for Earth be easy. But they did promise victory.
“Captain.”
Mingana turned to see Commander Povich standing at the balcony entrance, accompanied by Lt. Winter and Lt. Commander Kochran. The three regarded their captain with optimistic gazes.
“Your ship and crew awaits,” said Povich with humorous flourish. “Shall we take back our planet?”
Mingana presented a wolfish grin. “By all means, Commander.”
Three hours crawled by.
Mingana had gone straight to the bridge after the weapons room seizure. She ignored her marines' insistence that she stop at sickbay to get her arm treated. She had the medics meet her on the bridge instead.
Stripped down to a sleeveless black undershirt, with burn-treatment gauze covering her tricep wound, Captain Mingana stood beside her chair, eyes glued to an interface.
The Consortium ships had dropped into extended sensor range. As was mapped out before the mission, neither ship would make contact with the Horseman until they were within ten million miles of the city.
Mingana brought up schematics of both ships. They were roughly crab shaped vessels, each one slightly larger than the Horsemen, with shields powerful enough to withstand sustained bombardment from the most lethal of ship-killing missiles. Those shields, however, were only effective when they were up. At the moment those ships lay bare, like lions bereft of teeth and claws. The key in this operation was timing. Hit them while they were weak. Hit them hard. Mingana licked her mental chops, savoring the slaughter she was about to inflict.
“Consortium vessels have crossed the strike threshold, Captain,” Commander Povich reported, facing a gridded tactical interface.
Mingana acknowledged her Second's announcement with a crisp nod. She tapped an comm function on her chair. “Lt. Commander Kochran, status.”
“The packages are ready,” came Kochran's confident voice.
“Thank you.” Mingana turned to a senior combat officer. “Launch.”
The officer tapped keys on his console. “Yes, Captain. Initiating launch. Release in five...four...three...two...
***
Two thermal nuclear missiles exited the Horseman at velocities approaching light. They were human built with Calaar cloaking emitters embedded in their warheads.
Shortly before the Consortium occupied Earth, the Calaar added upgraded stealth to their capabilities, giving them a slight edge over their enemies in that area. The missiles were not simply swathed in light deflectant bubbles, they moved in subspace, further masking their existence from opposing optics and sensors. Fortunately, the Resistance's sole Calaar member, Ot^^^, had overseen the salvaging of a few new generation cloaking emitters. Afterward, the Consortium swept the solar system clean of any traces of Calaar technology.
The first Consortium ship became a pitch black cutout at the heart of a massive glare of hell light when the first missile struck it. A cascade of released nuclear fury cooked the ship, reducing it to a crumpled, smoldering husk. What remained of the vessel drifted powerlessly in the void. The second missile was knocked off of its trajectory by the pummeling effects of the first blast, sustaining just enough damage to short out its stealth function.
The missile emerged into full visibility five seconds before terminal contact with the second Consortium ship...which was more than enough time for the ship's close range defenses to respond.
Mingana watched her interface, the ecstatic thrill she felt witnessing the first ship's demise replaced by sickening horror as the second missile's cloak failed. A glittering salvo of close-range defense fire blew the missile apart in a blinding massive glow that quickly subsided like a snuffed out candle flame.
Mortified silence seized the bridge. The mission could only succeed if both enemy ships were destroyed. Mingana had to stop that second ship at all costs. All costs!
“Prep ship to ship missiles,” she ordered. “Move forward to engagement range, full impulse.”
Commander Povich didn't bat an eye when he relayed his captain's orders. Neither did anyone else on the bridge for that matter. Yet, they all knew that the Horseman, a human built vessel, stood little chance in a head to head encounter with a product of advanced extraterrestrial technology. But doing nothing at all to prevent the deaths of billions was certainly not an option.
Twenty Dragon Flare ship to ship missiles shot out from the Horseman's launchers, slicing a deadly path toward the Consortium ship. One by one the missiles vanished in a frenetic maelstrom of precision enemy counter fire.
Emitter nodes pimpling the enemy ship's hull spat incandescent lashes of energy toward the Horseman.
The human ship bucked violently as impacting beams speared explosively into its hull. Followup anti-ship missiles tore glowing gashes in the Horseman. Atmosphere plumed from numerous hull breaches, crystallizing in the freezing vacuum.
Bridge lighting and well over two thirds of interface screens blinked out. Auxiliary power had suffered substantially. Barely enough backup lighting clicked on to adequately alleviate the bridge's shadowy darkness.
Operations consoles sizzled and sparked from pernicious power surges.
“Guidance systems have suffered critical damage,” Povich reported, more calmly than the situation warranted. “Breaches are on every level...overall life support is at 80 percent, but that number is dropping.”
“Casualties?” Mingana asked.
“Eleven dead...so far. Twice that number injured according to sickbay data.”
The captain dropped a dejected gaze. More losses under her command...but she could not turn back. She refused. “Maintain target lock on enemy ship. Keep firing.”
“Most of our batteries are inoperable,” Povich said with a heavy grimace.
Mingana looked determinedly at her Second. “Then we'll use the batteries we have left, and when they're exhausted or destroyed, we'll come at that ship with fists, feet and teeth if need be.”
Povich gazed appreciatively at Mingana. “If need be. It's been an honor serving with you, Captain.”
Mingana smirked. “Likewise, Commander. But no happy farewells just yet. I want to at least bloody their noses.”
The Horseman and Consortium ship exchanged volleys. But the Horseman's missiles were knocked out of space faster than they could launch. By contrast, every missile cast by the enemy ship penetrated the Horesman's paltry defense screen with contemptuous lack of effort. More breaches opened up the length and breadth of the Horseman's hull, a few so deep as to gut entire levels. Crewmembers not incinerated in the blasts were sucked out into space in raging windstorms.
