06.15.2009
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June 15, 2009: International Space Station astronauts are getting a new toy in August – a treadmill. Famously named after comedian Stephen Colbert1, the new running machine will help astronauts stay fit, fighting off the bone loss and muscle decay2 that otherwise comes with space travel.
Just one problem: How do you run where there's no gravity to hold your feet to the ground?
"Bungee cords! You have to strap yourself to the treadmill," explains astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams. And she's not joking.
In 2007, she ran the Boston Marathon on the station station's TVIS treadmill wrapped in bungee cords for the entire 26.2 mile race.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," she laughs.
Right: Suni Williams bungeed to the TVIS treadmill onboard the ISS. [more] [larger image]
TVIS stands for "Treadmill with Vibration Isolation System." It's the space station's original treadmill, designed to allow astronauts to run without vibrating delicate microgravity science experiments in adjacent labs. COLBERT, short for "Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", has a different kind of vibration-suppression system plus some other improvements3 for runners:
"I tried a COLBERT mockup at Johnson Space Center," says Williams. "It's broader than TVIS, so you don't have to watch out where your feet go. It allows a wider, more natural gait."
Williams spent a lot of time running during her six months on board the ISS, and she recalls what it's like:
Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery "Just getting ready to run is a workout when you're weightless. Before all my training runs up there, I had to hook the toes of one foot under a handrail to keep from floating around while I struggled to put my sock and shoe on my other foot."
"I did this so often, it made calluses on top of my feet. Meanwhile, the calluses on the bottoms of my feet from running on Earth went away. It's totally upside down and backwards!" she laughs.
The treadmill's bungee harness "can be a bit uncomfortable," she continues. "During the marathon my foot sometimes went numb and tingly from the straps' pressure on my hip. Also, I had to use moleskin where the harness rubbed my neck raw."
And inside the close, still quarters of the space station, there are no gentle breezes to cool you down.
"Sweat globs onto you. It doesn't evaporate. I was soaking wet. During the marathon my hair was so sopping it flopped right in my face. We have little fans blowing on us but they don't do much good."
And Williams missed more than the soft winds of Earth.
"On Earth, the crowd cheers you on and you enjoy the camaraderie and support of the other runners. In space it's a little bit lonely. I was by myself most of race. My crewmates did cheer me through the last half hour to the finish. That was great!"
"Also, one of the Soyuz astronauts floated sweet, juicy pieces of oranges to me – so refreshing!"
Right: The official patch for "COLBERT," the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, due to launch onboard shuttle Discovery as early as August 2009. [more] [larger image]
After the grueling run, Williams longed for a hot shower. "A sponge bath just isn't the same!" she says. Neither did she have a washer and dryer for cleaning her sweat-soaked running clothes. "I hung my drenched clothes near a fan and tied my sneakers to a handrail to air them out."
Williams is the only person to have run the Boston Marathon on Earth and in space—and she noted some interesting differences:
"I recovered faster after the space marathon. When you're floating, your muscles get to rest, so you can totally relax when you finish running – it's like being in a pool."
"Also, the space marathon didn't give me the same endorphin4 effect – that wonderful mood lift runners enjoy after running – as the Earth marathon did. I'm not sure why," she says. "We are loaded with only about 60% of our Earth weight on TVIS and its harness system, so maybe I just didn't work hard enough!"
Williams says she'd consider running another marathon on COLBERT. "If another astronaut challenges my time, maybe I’ll do it. I have a competitive nature."
When it comes to running, you could say "it's out of this world."
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Author: Dauna Coulter Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips Credit: Science@NASA
end notes
(1) Stephen Colbert hosts Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." NASA chose the new treadmill’s name after he entered the Node 3 naming contest, asked his fans to post the name "Colbert," and won. NASA decided to honor him instead by naming the treadmill after him.
(2) Exercise is crucial to the astronauts' wellbeing. Without gravity, crewmembers lose bone and muscle mass and their cardiovascular system weakens. By exercising on COLBERT and other exercise devices, they can counteract these effects and keep their bodies in condition.
Williams says, "We need another treadmill up there. On the station, just like at the gym, sometimes you have to wait in line. The one of us in line will ask the one on the treadmill, 'When you gonna get off? I only have 30 minutes and I need to get on there.' COLBERT will allow more astronauts to get workouts more conveniently and frequently and longer."
(3) To create COLBERT, NASA started with a medical-grade treadmill -- the same kind used in most professional sports organization to train their athletes. Modifications included nickel plating the parts, changing the sheathing of the wires, and taking the rubber off the runner surface and anodizing it to give it texture for footing. The designers also developed a vibration isolation system for the new mill to prevent upsetting delicate science experiments. In addition, the engineers reinforced the rack that will hold the new treadmill, so sans mill it weighs about 2200 pounds -- much more than the rack on station now. Heavier mass makes it absorb loads better instead of passing them on to the space station itself. They also added special springs called ‘isolators’ that absorb impact. The combination of the springs and extra mass dampens out all the vibration from running. All of this is done without using any power.
Williams says: "Up on station, COLBERT won't sit on a gyro like TEVIS does. It took me a week to get used to running on TEVIS, which kind of floats on a gyro in a pit so you don't impart loads to the station. It makes it hard to get your balance. You feel kind of like a top, with the ground moving underneath you, until you get a rhythm going and get stabilized. COLBERT won’t be on a gyro so won’t require time to get used to. You can just hop on and run. It’s stiffer and feels more stable. It will also have programs to choose from: hill workouts, intervals etc. Not just manual. That will had variety and make for some more intense workouts, which will help improve our fitness and bone density more."
(4) For more information about running and endorphins, see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/health/nutrition/27best.html
NASA's Future: US Space Exploration Policy
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Solar system's planets could spin out of control - video 25918325001 - space - 10 June 2009 - New Scientist
Monday, May 11, 2009
A planetary Nebula Kohotek 4-55 , 4600 light years away
This Hubble image of planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55 was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on May 4, 2009. The colors represent the makeup of the various emission clouds in the nebula: red represents nitrogen, green represents hydrogen, and blue represents oxygen. K 4-55 is nearly 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL
Courtesy: NASA
Saturday, May 2, 2009
ISO to send bacteria into space..READ THE HINDU
Bangalore: In its first set of biological experiments, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will send bacteria cells into space — and bring them back — in the second Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-2) scheduled for launch this year-end.
Two life science experiments, using E.coli and photosynthetic bacteria, will help us understand cell division, genomics (genetic changes) and proteomics (changes in proteins) in microgravity conditions, said Kamanio Chattopadhyay, national coordinator of the Indian Microgravity Programme, who is coordinating scientific experiments for the mission.
In the first experiment, an E.coli cell would be grown in a bio-reactor and brought back to the earth to carry out genomic studies.
“When the experiment is recovered, we will explore why microgravity alters the growth of cells.” The experiment could be seen as a prelude to ISRO’s manned space mission slated for 2015, he said.
“We know that astronauts experience physiological changes when they go into space, the most common being bone loss. NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] has done experiments to prove that microgravity impacts genes. We need to understand this phenomenon better.”
FOR MORE DETAILS LOG ON TO:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/02/stories/2009050256751800.htm
Two life science experiments, using E.coli and photosynthetic bacteria, will help us understand cell division, genomics (genetic changes) and proteomics (changes in proteins) in microgravity conditions, said Kamanio Chattopadhyay, national coordinator of the Indian Microgravity Programme, who is coordinating scientific experiments for the mission.
In the first experiment, an E.coli cell would be grown in a bio-reactor and brought back to the earth to carry out genomic studies.
“When the experiment is recovered, we will explore why microgravity alters the growth of cells.” The experiment could be seen as a prelude to ISRO’s manned space mission slated for 2015, he said.
“We know that astronauts experience physiological changes when they go into space, the most common being bone loss. NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] has done experiments to prove that microgravity impacts genes. We need to understand this phenomenon better.”
FOR MORE DETAILS LOG ON TO:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/02/stories/2009050256751800.htm
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet
Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet
An artist's impression of 'Planet e' , forground left, released by the European Organisation for Astronomical … .By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Quinn, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 21, 1:50 pm ET
HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place.
European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.
"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.
An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary"
PLEASE READ MORE BY CLICKING HERE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet;_ylt=AqVTBj2dhR4GvvNbi4geXOnZn414
An artist's impression of 'Planet e' , forground left, released by the European Organisation for Astronomical … .By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Quinn, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 21, 1:50 pm ET
HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place.
European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.
"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.
An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary"
PLEASE READ MORE BY CLICKING HERE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet;_ylt=AqVTBj2dhR4GvvNbi4geXOnZn414
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Monkeys are Creative !!!!!
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/monkeys.jpg&imgrefurl=http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2007/12/monkey_planet.php&usg=__GVHu-krOvGjdw912mGyUN0KLdyQ=&h=306&w=414&sz=119&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=GGxPNlwTGtYQnM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmonkeys%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den
Enjoy your Friday by paying an objective and science-based visit to the Monkey Planet
Courtesy: http://scienceblogs.com
Enjoy your Friday by paying an objective and science-based visit to the Monkey Planet
Courtesy: http://scienceblogs.com
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Power from Wave Energy !
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The renewable energy sector has received a boost with the inauguration of the world's first commercial wave power project off the Portuguese coast.
It is hoped that the Pelamis Wave Energy Converters will provide energy for 15,000 homes.
more photos » Developed by a Scottish engineering company, Pelamis Wave Power Limited, the Pelamis Wave Energy Converters (PWEC) have been towed into position three miles off the coast of Agucadoura in north Portugal.
The first phase of the project is using three PWEC to generate 2.25 megawatts of power at a cost of nine million euros.
If successful, a second phase will see energy generation rise to 21 megawatts from a further 25 machines providing electricity for 15,000 Portuguese homes.
The project is a joint venture between Pelamis Wave Power Limited, Babcock and Brown Ltd -- a global specialist asset manager, Energias de Portugal (EDP) and Portuguese energy group EFACEC.
Named after the sea snake Pelamis, each machine measures 140 meters in length, is 3.5 meters wide and sits partially submerged in the sea.
"Effectively what you have is four long sections making up one machine. Between those sections are three small generating motors," he said.
"The four sections are all joined by hydraulic rams. As the waves run through the machine it pushes the rams in and out. The action of the rams going to and fro pushes hydraulic fluid into a high-pressure reservoir. That high-pressure reservoir then releases the fluid at a steady rate through a generating motor."
This power is fed down to a cable on the sea bed which then links back to a sub-station on shore where it is converted into useable electricity.
The PWEC are, of course, reliant on the weather. Depending on the wave resource, Pelamis predict that the machines will on average produce 25-40 percent of their full power output over the course of a year.
When the full array of 25 machines are in place it is calculated that around 60,000 tons of CO2 will be displaced.
If wave power was fully exploited, the British Wind Energy Association estimates that one-two billion tons of CO2 could be displaced every year.
Ian Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at Newcastle University in England, gave this latest development in wave power a cautious welcome.
"It's extraordinarily difficult to design a machine that will cope with the extreme violence of waves. Some wave machines are under the surface all the time -- but they are not as well developed as yet. Pelamis lies in the surface and it remains to be seen how successful it will be," he told CNN.
"But good luck to them. We'll just have to see how it operates over time and how it copes with serious weather conditions."
Professor Fells, a founding chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Center (NaREC) at Blyth, Northumberland, is convinced of the potential of wave power engineering but says it is still in its infancy.
"A few years ago when I was talking about a 500-kilowatt Wavegen machine, I was asked by a reporter how many of these we would need to replace the two nuclear power stations in Scotland, and the answer is 10,000. That puts things into perspective."
Courtesy: www.cnn.com
It is hoped that the Pelamis Wave Energy Converters will provide energy for 15,000 homes.
more photos » Developed by a Scottish engineering company, Pelamis Wave Power Limited, the Pelamis Wave Energy Converters (PWEC) have been towed into position three miles off the coast of Agucadoura in north Portugal.
The first phase of the project is using three PWEC to generate 2.25 megawatts of power at a cost of nine million euros.
If successful, a second phase will see energy generation rise to 21 megawatts from a further 25 machines providing electricity for 15,000 Portuguese homes.
The project is a joint venture between Pelamis Wave Power Limited, Babcock and Brown Ltd -- a global specialist asset manager, Energias de Portugal (EDP) and Portuguese energy group EFACEC.
Named after the sea snake Pelamis, each machine measures 140 meters in length, is 3.5 meters wide and sits partially submerged in the sea.
"Effectively what you have is four long sections making up one machine. Between those sections are three small generating motors," he said.
"The four sections are all joined by hydraulic rams. As the waves run through the machine it pushes the rams in and out. The action of the rams going to and fro pushes hydraulic fluid into a high-pressure reservoir. That high-pressure reservoir then releases the fluid at a steady rate through a generating motor."
This power is fed down to a cable on the sea bed which then links back to a sub-station on shore where it is converted into useable electricity.
The PWEC are, of course, reliant on the weather. Depending on the wave resource, Pelamis predict that the machines will on average produce 25-40 percent of their full power output over the course of a year.
When the full array of 25 machines are in place it is calculated that around 60,000 tons of CO2 will be displaced.
If wave power was fully exploited, the British Wind Energy Association estimates that one-two billion tons of CO2 could be displaced every year.
Ian Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at Newcastle University in England, gave this latest development in wave power a cautious welcome.
"It's extraordinarily difficult to design a machine that will cope with the extreme violence of waves. Some wave machines are under the surface all the time -- but they are not as well developed as yet. Pelamis lies in the surface and it remains to be seen how successful it will be," he told CNN.
"But good luck to them. We'll just have to see how it operates over time and how it copes with serious weather conditions."
Professor Fells, a founding chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Center (NaREC) at Blyth, Northumberland, is convinced of the potential of wave power engineering but says it is still in its infancy.
"A few years ago when I was talking about a 500-kilowatt Wavegen machine, I was asked by a reporter how many of these we would need to replace the two nuclear power stations in Scotland, and the answer is 10,000. That puts things into perspective."
Courtesy: www.cnn.com
Friday, September 26, 2008
Scientists give artificial fingers ‘extra feeling’
Scientists give artificial fingers ‘extra feeling’
Published on Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 00:22 in Health section
COURTESY: www.ibnlive.com
ARTIFICIAL SENSATION : Scientists give artificial hands and fingertips the power of touch.
London: People fitted with artificial hands will not only be able to sense touch, but would "instinctively" stop objects slipping from their grasp, all thanks to a group of researchers, who have developed sensitive limbs and fingers for making artificial limbs more and more life-like.
Scientists at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, have developed artificial hands and fingertips that have the power of touch and can "instinctively" stop objects slipping from their grasp.
Human hands make use of a built-in reflex that automatically estimate the minimum force needed to hold on to an object.
The reflex works by responding to tiny vibrations in the skin as an object starts to slip through our fingers.
However, the reflex mechanism is missing in existing artificial hands, thus operators have to consciously estimate the required force.
"It’s very mentally taxing," Telegraph quoted Jeremy Fishel, a member of the research team, as telling New Scientist.
The researchers have developed a system in which the finger tip consists of a rubber skin, filled with thick silicon gel.
If an object begins to slip, the vibrations in the finger’s elastic skin transmit through the silicon gel to sensors attached to a central acrylic "bone".
The vibration provides instant feedback, telling the motors in the hand to tighten their grip before the vibrations stop.
The bone of the finger is also covered with tiny electrodes, across which a small voltage is applied.
The deformations in the elastic skin caused by holding an object alter the distribution of gel in the fingertip, which changes the amount of electricity that is conducted between the electrodes.
The information could then be transmitted to a pressure device worn on a patch of the hand-operator’s healthy skin, helping them to "feel" what their prosthetic hand is touching.
A prototype of the finger will be presented at the BioRob conference in Scottsdale, Arizona
Published on Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 00:22 in Health section
COURTESY: www.ibnlive.com
ARTIFICIAL SENSATION : Scientists give artificial hands and fingertips the power of touch.
London: People fitted with artificial hands will not only be able to sense touch, but would "instinctively" stop objects slipping from their grasp, all thanks to a group of researchers, who have developed sensitive limbs and fingers for making artificial limbs more and more life-like.
Scientists at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, have developed artificial hands and fingertips that have the power of touch and can "instinctively" stop objects slipping from their grasp.
Human hands make use of a built-in reflex that automatically estimate the minimum force needed to hold on to an object.
The reflex works by responding to tiny vibrations in the skin as an object starts to slip through our fingers.
However, the reflex mechanism is missing in existing artificial hands, thus operators have to consciously estimate the required force.
"It’s very mentally taxing," Telegraph quoted Jeremy Fishel, a member of the research team, as telling New Scientist.
The researchers have developed a system in which the finger tip consists of a rubber skin, filled with thick silicon gel.
If an object begins to slip, the vibrations in the finger’s elastic skin transmit through the silicon gel to sensors attached to a central acrylic "bone".
The vibration provides instant feedback, telling the motors in the hand to tighten their grip before the vibrations stop.
The bone of the finger is also covered with tiny electrodes, across which a small voltage is applied.
The deformations in the elastic skin caused by holding an object alter the distribution of gel in the fingertip, which changes the amount of electricity that is conducted between the electrodes.
The information could then be transmitted to a pressure device worn on a patch of the hand-operator’s healthy skin, helping them to "feel" what their prosthetic hand is touching.
A prototype of the finger will be presented at the BioRob conference in Scottsdale, Arizona
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Scientists start world's biggest physics experiment
Scientists start world's biggest physics experiment
Courtesy: Yahoo NEWS.
Wed, Sep 10 06:51 PM
By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - International scientists celebrated the successful start of a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday aiming to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe.
Experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.
The project has had to work hard to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet.
Such fears, fanned by doomsday writers, have spurred huge interest in particle physics before the machine's start-up. Leading scientists have dismissed such concerns as "nonsense."
The debut of the machine that cost 10 billion Swiss francs ($9 billion) registered as a blip on a control room screen at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, at about 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT).
"We've got a beam on the LHC," project leader Lyn Evans told his colleagues, who burst into applause at the news.
The physicists and technicians huddled in the control room cheered loudly again an hour later when the particle beam completed a clockwise trajectory of the accelerator, successfully completing the machine's first major task.
Eventually, the scientists want to send beams in both directions to create tiny collisions at nearly the speed of light, an attempt to recreate on a miniature scale the heat and energy of the Big Bang, a concept of the origin of the universe that dominates scientific thinking.
The Big Bang is thought to have occurred 15 billion years ago when an unimaginably dense and hot object the size of a small coin exploded in a void, spewing out matter that expanded rapidly to create stars, planets and eventually life on Earth.
SLIGHT HICCUP
Problems with the LHC's magnets caused its temperature -- which is kept at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius -- to fluctuate slightly, delaying efforts to send a particle beam in the counter-clockwise direction. The beam started its progression and then was halted.
"This is a hiccup, not a major thing," Rudiger Schmidt, CERN's head of hardware commissioning, told reporters, adding the second rotation should be completed on Wednesday afternoon.
Evans, who wore jeans and running shoes to the start-up, declined to say when those high-energy clashes would begin.
"I don't know how long it will take," he said. "I think what has happened this morning bodes very well that it will go quickly ... This is a machine of enormous complexity. Things can go wrong at any time. But this morning we had a great start."
Once the particle-smashing experiment gets to full speed, data measuring the location of particles to a few millionths of a metre, and the passage of time to billionths of a second, will show how the particles come together, fly apart, or dissolve.
It is in these conditions that scientists hope to find fairly quickly a theoretical particle known as the Higgs Boson, named after Scottish scientist Peter Higgs who first proposed it in 1964, as the answer to the mystery of how matter gains mass.
Without mass, the stars and planets in the universe could never have taken shape in the aeons after the Big Bang, and life could never have begun -- on Earth or, if it exists as many cosmologists believe, on other worlds either.
cOURTESY: YAHOO NEWS
Courtesy: Yahoo NEWS.
Wed, Sep 10 06:51 PM
By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - International scientists celebrated the successful start of a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday aiming to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe.
Experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.
The project has had to work hard to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet.
Such fears, fanned by doomsday writers, have spurred huge interest in particle physics before the machine's start-up. Leading scientists have dismissed such concerns as "nonsense."
The debut of the machine that cost 10 billion Swiss francs ($9 billion) registered as a blip on a control room screen at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, at about 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT).
"We've got a beam on the LHC," project leader Lyn Evans told his colleagues, who burst into applause at the news.
The physicists and technicians huddled in the control room cheered loudly again an hour later when the particle beam completed a clockwise trajectory of the accelerator, successfully completing the machine's first major task.
Eventually, the scientists want to send beams in both directions to create tiny collisions at nearly the speed of light, an attempt to recreate on a miniature scale the heat and energy of the Big Bang, a concept of the origin of the universe that dominates scientific thinking.
The Big Bang is thought to have occurred 15 billion years ago when an unimaginably dense and hot object the size of a small coin exploded in a void, spewing out matter that expanded rapidly to create stars, planets and eventually life on Earth.
SLIGHT HICCUP
Problems with the LHC's magnets caused its temperature -- which is kept at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius -- to fluctuate slightly, delaying efforts to send a particle beam in the counter-clockwise direction. The beam started its progression and then was halted.
"This is a hiccup, not a major thing," Rudiger Schmidt, CERN's head of hardware commissioning, told reporters, adding the second rotation should be completed on Wednesday afternoon.
Evans, who wore jeans and running shoes to the start-up, declined to say when those high-energy clashes would begin.
"I don't know how long it will take," he said. "I think what has happened this morning bodes very well that it will go quickly ... This is a machine of enormous complexity. Things can go wrong at any time. But this morning we had a great start."
Once the particle-smashing experiment gets to full speed, data measuring the location of particles to a few millionths of a metre, and the passage of time to billionths of a second, will show how the particles come together, fly apart, or dissolve.
It is in these conditions that scientists hope to find fairly quickly a theoretical particle known as the Higgs Boson, named after Scottish scientist Peter Higgs who first proposed it in 1964, as the answer to the mystery of how matter gains mass.
Without mass, the stars and planets in the universe could never have taken shape in the aeons after the Big Bang, and life could never have begun -- on Earth or, if it exists as many cosmologists believe, on other worlds either.
cOURTESY: YAHOO NEWS
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