AskScience AMA Series: We're the team sending NASA's Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's moon Titan. Ask us anything! | AskScience Blog

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Monday, July 1, 2019

AskScience AMA Series: We're the team sending NASA's Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's moon Titan. Ask us anything!

AskScience AMA Series: We're the team sending NASA's Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's moon Titan. Ask us anything!


AskScience AMA Series: We're the team sending NASA's Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's moon Titan. Ask us anything!

Posted: 01 Jul 2019 04:00 AM PDT

For the first time, NASA will fly a drone for science on another world! Our Dragonfly mission will explore Saturn's icy moon Titan while searching for the building blocks of life.

Dragonfly will launch in 2026 and arrive in 2034. Once there, the rotorcraft will fly to dozens of promising locations on the mysterious ocean world in search of prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and Earth. Titan is an analog to the very early Earth, and can provide clues to how life may have arisen on our home planet.

Team members answering your questions include:

  • Curt Niebur, Lead Program Scientist for New Frontiers
  • Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division
  • Zibi Turtle, Dragonfly Principal Investigator
  • Peter Bedini, Dragonfly Project Manager
  • Ken Hibbard, Dragonfly Mission Systems Engineer
  • Melissa Trainer, Dragonfly Deputy Principal Investigator

We'll sign on at 3 p.m. EDT (19 UT), ask us anything!

submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator
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In quantum mechanics, a wavefunction collapses to a single eigenstate due to interaction with the external world. What exactly is an "observation" in the quantum world and does an observation require consciousness to collapse the wavefunction?

Posted: 01 Jul 2019 07:46 AM PDT

What is the diameter of a Carbon-12 atom?

Posted: 01 Jul 2019 08:43 AM PDT

I have not been able to find anything about it online.

submitted by /u/Lightbuster31
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How does the ozone layer “heal” itself?

Posted: 01 Jul 2019 05:19 AM PDT

I recently saw this article stating that the ozone layer is recovering after being in a critical stat several decades a ago. How exactly is it that a layer of the atmosphere can regenerate itself after being depleted? Am I just thinking about this wrong? Have we taken steps to not only reduce the harm we do to it, but to actually regenerate what we have depleted?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/05/ozone-layer-healing-after-aerosols-un-northern-hemisphere

submitted by /u/shac_melley
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What do you call the protein on the surface of CD4+ cells that allows other cells to know ita infected?

Posted: 01 Jul 2019 05:33 AM PDT

When HIV goes away from the cell it manifested,it takes with it the host cell membrane(cytoplasm),which helps the bioinformatics(protein molecules of HIV) to hide and not be detected by the system.

Is there not any protein/enzyme on the surface of the cytoplasm that shows that it was once infected? And that the HIV virus is just using it as a front line to hide itself?

What do you call the protein on the surface of CD4+ cells that allows other cells to know its infected?Is it MHC 2?

submitted by /u/idkyallzxcv
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If the defining characteristic of an element is the number of protons in the nucleus, aren't there theoretically an infinite(ish) number of elements?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 10:26 PM PDT

So if you slap another proton into the nucleus, the identity of the atom changes, right? At least, it becomes an isotope of the new element. Can't you just keep doing it in the realms beyond the periodic table? Is the periodic table only a list of the known, witnessed elements, or is it a list of all possible elements?

submitted by /u/Pokemaster131
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Why intense radiation causes almost immediate vomiting?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 02:12 PM PDT

I understand that radiation poisoning causes all sort of troubles in the following hours/days/years/etc...

I am however surprised to see accounts of people (e.g. Louis Slotin) exposed to radiation poisoning who start vomiting in the immediate aftermath, possibly seconds after the exposure.

What's the mechanism behind this?

submitted by /u/flying_baboon
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Do electrons actually move through a conductor?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 04:30 PM PDT

I've been watching some physics videos, and most of the time electricity/current is represented as particles (electrons?) moving through a conductor, like copper.

However, I've recently "learned" that electrons barely move in conductors, it's only the electromagnetic waves that move significantly. Close to the speed of light I believe.

As an example, in one of these videos capacitors were represented as two plates close together. It was explained that a higher concentration of negatively charged particles would be forced into one plate, causing the second plate to fill up with positively charged particles in response. I believe a similar phenomenon occurs to some degree in many electromagnetic components, like coils for example.

I guess the root of my question is, how do these two concepts reconcile? Moving particles vs moving waves?

A battery might be an example as well. More electrons on one pole, less on the other. If only the waves move through a circuit between the two, why would they ever lose their electric field/voltage?

submitted by /u/pantera_de_sexo
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Is there any theories or evidence that explains how caterpillar, and similar creatures, evolved the ability to Metamophize??? [Sorry if flair is wrong]

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 08:06 PM PDT

This is something thats baffled me for many years.... last time I asked a paleontologist, he had no explanation.. but that was 10 years ago.

submitted by /u/atreestump1
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How does Lichen sclerosus occur?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 05:19 PM PDT

I am not a science student in any form. From google searches I understand it is an auto immune disorder and one of main treatment methods is by using corticosteroids. How does it actually occur?

submitted by /u/richestkingOfReddit
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Have future mountain ranges been modelled?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 01:31 PM PDT

100 million years from now for example.

submitted by /u/hanoian
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How exactly does fresh air help to alleviate nausea symptoms?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 08:36 AM PDT

What exactly happens when a program crashes?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 02:45 PM PDT

My conception of a program is as follows:

A program is a series of instructions (mov, sub, add, etc...) that are executed in by a CPU. The CPU runs multiple programs by switching back and forth between them very quickly, maintaining state for each program so that each program "thinks" it's the only one executing (with its own memory, registers, etc...)

So, on that model, what exactly happens when a program crashes? Is it what happens when the program gives the CPU an instruction that the CPU can't execute? Is it that the OS fails to maintain state when switching back and forth between programs? Something else? Neither?

Thanks!

submitted by /u/philCScareeradvice
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How did the Himalayas + Tibetan plateau become so “fat”?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 08:07 AM PDT

How did the Himalayas + Tibetan plateau become so "fat"?

Mountains are created when plates move into each other but how did The Himalayas + the Tibetan plateau end up so "fat"?

submitted by /u/TitanJazza
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Why do we use water in steam based energy production instead of alcohol?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 07:53 AM PDT

Why do we use water in steam based energy production, like nuclear powerplants instead of something with a lower temperature to turn into gas like alcohol?

submitted by /u/PM_MI_UR_COLLAR_BONE
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How does an ant have enough energy stores to carry objects far larger than they are over distances that are great relative to their size?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 02:23 PM PDT

I was outside clipping my nails and one of the clippings started moving. Upon closer investigation I found there was an ant carrying the nail. This ant was very small. Looked like a black speck. I would have needed a magnifying class to make out its legs. I started wondering how the ant could have enough energy in its body to carry such a load. My physics is weak but it seems like the calories needed to perform the work of carrying such a load over such a distance would be greater than that which the ant could have in its fuel tank. Obviously the ant does have the energy needed. I'd just like to see the math.

submitted by /u/124701
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Outside of volcanos, are surface-level lava and lava rivers common or is that the work of fiction?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 08:18 PM PDT

In movies and media, you often see rivers of lava in caves or mountain strongholds (mountains, not volcanos) with active lava pools seemingly close to the surface. Is that fairly common? What are the requirements for such things?

submitted by /u/goat_fab
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How do epidural shots work?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 06:43 PM PDT

I know that they block nerves but could anyone provide a more in depth explanation? (i currently am doing my first anatomy course in University and I've done a couple pharmacology course but this question didn't cross my mind until recently) Also, additional questions! What sort of receptors does it act on? What nerves do they block? what do the nerves usually innervate?? what sort of chemical is contained in an epidural shot?? how likely is someone to die/suffer an injury from an innaccurate / excess dose?

submitted by /u/izzathrowawai
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Is the incidence of lung cancer greater in countries where public smoking is allowed compared with countries where smoking is banned in public places?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 04:51 AM PDT

What would happen when a fusion reactor broke open?

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 12:52 PM PDT

What are the long term effects of G-force on human body? Like the one F1 pilots experience.

Posted: 30 Jun 2019 07:17 AM PDT

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