Monthly Archives: June 2018

International Asteroid Day!

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What is an asteroid?

You may be wondering what the difference is between an asteroid, meteor, meteorite and every other name given to a shooting star or flying clump of rock in space. Well we have broken it down into an answer that is simple….. Sort of. It all starts with an asteroid.

An asteroid is a large rocky (planet looking) body, in orbit of the sun, that is too small to be classified as a planet. In space there are millions of asteroids and lots of them are a potential threat to Earth. Asteroids range in size from hundreds of miles to several feet in diameter.

A meteoroid is a particle of an meteoroid that has broken off and is now orbiting the sun. If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere it is then known as a meteor. A meteor shower is a group of meteoroids all travelling in parallel trajectories from one point in space. Most meteors burn up when they are travelling through our atmosphere and therefore never hit the earth’s surface. The meteors that do hit earth are called meteorites.

Asteroid defence?

Over the past 4.5 billion years since the Earth was formed, about 4.5 billion meteors (the sizes of cars) have made their way through its atmosphere. Yes, that’s around one automobile sized meteor every year. Although, these are meteors and not meteorites, therefore they create a substantial fireball but burn out before hitting the ground.

Scientists these days are able to tell if an asteroid or meteor is en route to earth 30-40 years before it does. This is enough time for us to destroy it before it destroys us. We can do this by exploding the asteroid or meteor, although sometimes we can divert them away from earth instead.

When is the next meteor shower?

Unfortunately you will have to wait a couple months for our next meteor shower, it is called Perseid and will be peaking in our skies on the 12- 13th of August. In order to get the most out of your meteor shower view, we recommend getting out into the middle of nowhere where there is little to no light pollution; bringing a friend or your family and a warm blanket (also a telescope if you’ve got one). Once you’re comfortable, sit tight and wait for the spectacular starry show!

Visit asteroidday.org to find out more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International Women in Engineering Day | #INWED18

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Over the past few years there has been a global push to engage more women and girls in science and engineering in order to reduce the gender imbalance within the STEM industries. However, more still needs to be done to encourage and support women as they enter a STEM career and to highlight the valuable contributions women make to the field.

To celebrate International Women in Engineering Day, we spoke to some of the wonderful engineers at Newcastle University to find out why they decided to pursue a career in engineering…

Inspired to pursue a career in Engineering? Find out more about our undergraduate Engineering degrees here.

The Importance of Combating Desertification and Drought

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The 17th June marks the United Nation’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The day serves as a reminder of the international efforts taking place to combat land degradation – these efforts are incredibly important to the livelihood of not only a huge number of ecosystems, but to millions of humans worldwide.

Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. Degradation processes can be fueled by a number of factors, including temperature and rainfall changes resulting from climate change and human-induced drivers of change such as soil erosion.

As the land begins to degrade, the benefits it once provided begin to diminish and the climate can be affected due to “many forms of land degradation releasing carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change.”

Research conducted by Professor Mark Reed, Newcastle University, and Professor Lindsay Stringer of University of Leeds highlights how the effects of climate change may be far greater for the world’s poorest people than previously feared due to the devastating consequences desertification can have on food production.

“It’s easy to think of land degradation as a problem of the developing world that doesn’t affect us here in the UK,” explains Professor Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University.

“But if we continue to lose productive forests and rangelands around the world, then the carbon that they once locked up will be released into the atmosphere where it’ll drive further loss of productive ecosystems and more climate change.

“This will leave even more people vulnerable to the combined effects of climate change and land degradation.

“It’s a vicious cycle and one that will affect everyone living on the planet if we don’t start doing more to avoid runaway climate change by properly looking after our land.”

In order to tackle this problem, Professors Reed and Stringer explain that we need a more collaborative approach between researchers, local communities and international policy-makers to create timely and cost effective solutions.

Find out more about Newcastle University’s agricultural research here.

Pacific discoveries show wealth of life still present in our oceans

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To celebrate #WorldOceansDay we hear from Dr Alan Jamieson and Dr Thom Linley about their most recent exciting discoveries in the deepest parts of the Pacific.

We live in a time where the marine environment is rarely reported in the media without mention of the negative impacts of human activity.  As important as this awareness is, we must be conscience that it does not overshadow the beauty and splendour of the oceans and the fascinating research being done in science and exploration.

One of the last great frontiers in marine science are the deepest places on Earth, the Hadal Trenches, mostly located around the Pacific rim in areas where tectonic plates collide and plunge the seafloor to depths close to 11,000 metres (~7 miles).

Groundbreaking technology

At Newcastle University, we have been pioneering technology for the exploration of these ultra-deep environments and have to date completed nearly 250 deployments of their ‘lander’ systems. Recently we embarked on an expedition on board the German Research vessel Sonne to the Atacama Trench in the SE Pacific off the coast of Peru and Chile where we deployed our baited camera system 27 times across the depths of the trench including the deepest point, Richards Deep, at just over 8000 metres.

On our previous missions the group have amassed multiple successes such as obtaining the first ever video footage of fish in the hadal zone (greater than 6000m deep), and video the deepest living fishes in many Pacific trenches and more recently, described the deepest fish in the world.

Life in the deep

These record breaking fishes are of the Liparidae family, commonly known as snailfishes.  They are small, semi-transparent, pink in colour with small black eyes and do not conform to the preconceived stereotypical image of what a deep-sea fish should look like.  In fact they look and behave a lot like their shallow water counterparts, some of which can be found in estuarine systems, even the River Tyne.

The Atacama Trench expedition produced a wealth of new information about the species inhabiting these extreme depths which is also interesting in that the trench is very isolated from the other Pacific deeps, by ~12,000 kilometres of deep sea floor.

Discovery of new species

Perhaps the most fascinating result of the latest expedition was the discovery of three new species of snailfish living between 6500 and 7500 metres. These species are so new they haven’t been officially classified yet and are currently affectionately known as the pink, blue and purple Atacama snailfishes. We obtained hours of footage of these new snailfish swimming, foraging, preying upon small crustaceans, and on one dive filmed all three in a single video.

We also filmed some astonishingly rare footage of long-legged isopods, known as Munnopsids, which are about the size of a hand. These crustaceans have small bodies, extraordinary long legs and swim backwards and upsides down, propelling themselves with paddles on their ventral sides before righting themselves on the seafloor and spreading their long walking legs out like a spider. What species these are is unknown.

The discovery of so many new species of fish and these large isopods, and capturing it all on high definition video from one expedition, is testament to the progress that is being made at the extreme marine frontiers. Discoveries like these are a reminder that the ocean is a big place and there is still a lot to learn, to find and to celebrate.

Links for more information

For more information about the marine research that we carry out at Newcastle University, visit our webpages.

Information about Dr Alan Jamieson’s work

Information about Dr Thom Linley’s work