Daily Archives: September 20, 2022

Queen Elizabeth IIs death has triggered a subdued reaction in Cyprus, where the British monarch is intertwined with the islands painful history of empire, independence and division.

For some Cypriots with long memories, she is the head of state blamed for signing off on the death warrants of freedom fighters against British colonial rule in the late 1950s.

Old wounds reappeared earlier this year during the Queens jubilee celebrations organised by the British military stationed on the island.

In June, a charity concert celebrating the queens platinum jubilee was toned down and relocated to a site within the British bases, after a small but vocal group charged that the event celebrated a killer queen.

The row stemmed from Elizabeth being head of state during the Cyprus independence struggle from British rule from 1955-1959, during which nine young EOKA fighters were executed.

She was a good queen but not for Cyprus She didnt sign to give a life (pardon) the boys fighting for Cyprus, for freedom, and they hung them, said Andreas, an 83-year-old pensioner, declining to give his surname.

But another Greek Cypriot encountered around the capitals busy Ledra Street was less dismissive.

Were sad and we feel sorrow about her death. We wish that the new king will be like her. Long live the king! said Alec Ioannou.

Cyprus has traditionally close ties with its former colonial ruler, but the past sometimes gets in the way.

Although Cyprus is also an active member of the Commonwealth, which the queen headed, she got a mixed reception when visiting in 1993.

Some Greek Cypriots jeered her during an October 1993 visit to Nicosia, the worlds last divided capital.

Royal observers say it was one of the queens worst receptions on her travels.

During her first and only visit to the island to attend a Commonwealth heads of government meeting, the queen was greeted by angry demonstrators and shouts of Go home.

But many Cypriots are also pro-British with a large diaspora community in the UK; many Cypriots choose Britain for higher education, and tourists from Britain are the islands largest source of visitors.

There is also a large British expat community that calls Cyprus home.

Prince Edward and Sophie celebrated the Queens jubilee during their first royal visit to Cyprus in June.

They received a warm reception on the island without a hint of dissent.

We offer our most sincere condolences for the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. At these difficult times, our thoughts are with the Royal Family and the people of the United Kingdom, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades posted on Twitter as the world united in mourning her death.

Cyprus marked 62 years since independence from Britain this year, but the small island remains divided and home to foreign bases and a UN peacekeeping force.

Another residue of discontent with Britain is that the country was a guarantor of the islands sovereignty under the treaty of independence, but the UK did not intervene to stop the 1974 Turkish invasion.

The Mediterranean island, now home to a combined population of about 1.2 million, has been a prized strategic possession for a succession of empires through the ages.

-Murder Mile

Modern history has divided it between a Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north.

Todays busy pedestrian thoroughfare behind the capitals ancient Venetian walls, Ledra Street, was known as the Murder Mile during the bloody Greek Cypriot guerrilla war against the British army.

The islands majority Greek Cypriot community had fought in 1955-1959 for Enosis, a long-yearned union with motherland Greece.

It finally accepted Britains offer of independence in 1960, conditional on London retaining sovereignty over two coastal bases before inter-communal bloodshed and Turkeys 1974 invasion of northern Cyprus.

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History mars ties between queen, ex-colony Cyprus - Breitbart

After observing Jupiter and revealing a unique set of rings going around it, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has trained its lenses towards Mars. The worlds most powerful observatory has captured its first images and spectra of Mars, which could help better understand churnings happening on the Red Planet.

The telescope, which is equipped to take science back in time and observe the changes and evolution that have shaped planetary objects over millennia, can help in revealing new insights into the planet's dust storms, weather patterns, seasonal changes, and the processes that occur at different times of Martian day.

The telescope joins orbiters and rovers in unraveling the secrets of Mars as humans look to set up colonies on the planet in the near future.

Also Read | Hubble captures spiral arms of a galaxy filled with young suns

The telescope in its first image captured the Red Planet using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which shows a region of the planets eastern hemisphere at two different wavelengths. Nasa released the image with a surface reference map and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on the left, with the two Webb NIRCam instrument fields of view overlaid.

Left: Reference map of the observed hemisphere of Mars from Nasa and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). Top right: NIRCam image showing 2.1-micron (F212 filter) reflected sunlight, revealing surface features such as craters and dust layers. Bottom right: Simultaneous NIRCam image showing ~4.3-micron (F430M filter) emitted light that reveals temperature differences with latitude and time of day. (Photo: Nasa)

The image captured by the NIRCam reveals surface details similar to those apparent in visible-light images. The image shows the rings of the Huygens Crater, the dark volcanic rock of Syrtis Major, and the brightening in the Hellas Basin are all apparent in this image.

Also Read | China unveils Mars mission results, rover travels 1.9 kms on Red Planet

Meanwhile, the NIRCam image captured at a longer wavelength shows off the light given off by the planet as it loses heat. "The brightest region on the planet is where the Sun is nearly overhead, because it is generally warmest. The brightness decreases towards the polar regions, which receive less sunlight, and less light is emitted from the cooler northern hemisphere, which is experiencing winter at this time of year," Nasa said in a release with the image.

Located nearly 1,50,000 kilometers away from Earth, the James Webb telescope is equipped to see light coming from the edge of time. However, Mars is the closest planet to the spacecraft, which adds to new challenges in observing it. The location provides a view of Mars observable disk, which is the portion of the sunlit side that is facing the telescope.

Since Mars is closest to the observatory, the Red Planet is one of the brightest objects in the night sky in terms of both visible light (which human eyes can see) and infrared light. This adds to the difficulty since the observatory was built to detect the extremely faint light of the most distant galaxies in the universe.

To see Mars, the Webb team had to adjust for Mars extreme brightness by using very short exposures, measuring only some of the light that hit the detectors, and applying special data analysis techniques.

Also Read | Jupiter to be closest to Earth in 70 years on this date

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Mars looks blinding as Webb telescope zooms in on Red Planet for the first time - India Today

"It's one of those scientific things where it's part of a larger body of work that will continue in many labs. The key here is that the more people that look at this problem from different viewpoints, the better it is,'" Norman Wagner, Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware, tells IE.

"And the challenges will not only bring new, talented people to the problem but also existing scientists and other engineers who are working in a related field to read about the research and say, 'Oh, I can contribute to this," he continues.

Wagner and his colleagues are also on the bandwagon, with a less peculiar and more feasible concept - using clay-like topsoil materials collected from the moon or Mars as the base for extraterrestrial cement.

This mosaic shows layered sedimentary rocks in the face of a cliff in the delta, as well as one of the locations where the rover abraded a circular patch to analyze a rocks composition.

Space exploration will require infrastructure such as buildings, housing, bases, and rocket landing pads that don't yet exist.

For obvious reasons, including weight and space constraints, we can't take "bags of concrete with us we need to use local resources," Wagner says.

Fortunately, Wagner and his colleagues were already working on a couple of solutions for use on our planet, which proved to be largely helpful in their quest to 'make' concrete in space.

It started with finding a substitute for ordinary Portland cement, which has a "host of problems". "Firstly, it requires limestone, which isn't easy to find. Secondly, and more importantly, converting the limestone into a clinker is used to make concrete, which requires high-temperature processing and oxidation. This releases carbon dioxide. Cement production causes about seven to eight percent of all the carbon dioxide produced by humanity. It's a serious issue," Wagner tells me.

As a sustainable alternative, Wagner considered the idea of geopolymers.

Geopolymers are inorganic polymers formed from aluminosilicate minerals found in common clays everywhere. When mixed with a solvent that has a high pH, such as sodium silicate, the clay can be dissolved, freeing the aluminum and silicon inside to react with other materials and form new solid ceramic-like materials that can be used like cement.

Simultaneously, Wagner was also working with NASA on a couple of projects associated with the lunar and Martian regolith. This refers to a region of loose, unconsolidated rock and dust that sits atop a layer of bedrock - it is found on the Earth, other planets, and asteroids.

"We were working with NASA on regolith from the standpoint of the contamination of the spacesuits, which is a major problem. The Apollo astronauts got a tremendous amount of serious technological and health issues associated with the dust due to the regolith adhering to their clothing. It's very abrasive and is like volcanic ash," he explains.

The Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon are suspected to be formed by a magma rich in silica, similar in composition to granite.

Amid all this, Maria Katzarova, a former associate scientist and member of Wagners lab at UD, wondered if it was possible to activate simulated moon and Martian soils to become concrete-like building materials using geopolymer chemistry. She proposed the idea to NASA and obtained funding via the Delaware Space Grant Consortium. The project included the help and expertise of then-UD doctoral student Jennifer Mills, who studied terrestrial geopolymers for her doctoral dissertation.

"The two of them partnered up and studied the different regolith that you find on the Moon and Mars. And they looked at the literature and realized that there hadn't been a clear scientific sort of standardization of how we approached this problem," says Wagner.

The researchers took a series of the most common materials that NASA has identified through the various missions to the moon. They compared them in a head-to-head manner that hadn't been done before, "as to how we can activate them and how we can create high strength cement structure with the minimum amount of material required because obviously, we can't take a lot with us when we go to the Moon and Mars," says Wagner.

"We realized that the same chemistries we were using here on Earth to create essentially geopolymer cement are the same we need to do on the surface of the Moon and Mars when we go there to build landing pads and habitats," says Wagner, whose team worked on the problem and recently converted simulated lunar and Martian soils into geopolymer cement.

The results were published recently in Advances in Space Research.

A crushed geopolymer cube made from simulated lunar topsoil, inset shows magnification of lunar topsoil particles which have been activated and reacted to form the geopolymer binder.

For their research, the scientists mixed various simulated soils with sodium silicate then cast the geopolymer mixture into ice-cube-like molds and waited for the reaction to occur. After seven days, they measured each cubes size and weight, then crushed it to understand how the material behaves under load. They were intrigued to know if slight differences in chemistry between simulated soils affected the materials strength, according to a press release.

The researchers also calculated how much terrestrial material astronauts would need to take with them to build a landing pad on the surface of the moon or Mars. Fortunately, the estimated amount is well within the payload range of a rocket, anywhere from hundreds to thousands of kilograms.

Most importantly, the samples had to be subjected to different environments, including vacuum and very low and high temperatures.

"Looking at temperature and water are very important aspects of the problem. It is important to understand whether there are significant unexpected problems, or sometimes benefits, of being in an environment that's different than a controlled laboratory environment," Wagner says.

Under vacuum, some of the material samples did form cement, while others were only partially successful. While the geopolymer materials didnt react at all under low temperatures of about -80 degrees Celsius, at high temperatures, of about 600 degrees Celsius, the researchers found that every moon-like sample got stronger.

Based on their results, the researchers figured that chemical composition and particle size were likely to play an important role in material strength.

But, due to the complex chemistry involved, the problem comes with a unique set of challenges every time.

"The molecular chemistry of these materials is so rich, and there are so many variations - a single method could produce two different samples, one of which will never lead to a viable engineering solution. And so we need to use tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence to accurately and rapidly process the materials. Unfortunately, where we are right now, the challenge is that we don't have a Ph.D. understanding of the problem from a scientific perspective, and that's what we're working on," says Wagner.

Wagner's team currently has a partnership with Georgetown University and Northeastern University funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), under the division of materials research, owing to their work on sustainable materials.

The advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence will aid the researchers in developing rules and engineering solutions to this problem as the science is too "big" and it isn't technologically viable from an economic and techno-economic standpoint.

"If you go anywhere in the world and put a shovel in the ground and dig up clay, you will find different chemistry. The question is how much work do you need to do so that you don't have to do a lot of work to successfully make the best geopolymer cement out of that local material? Also, when the astronauts go to the moon, they won't have a gigantic laboratory or analytical tools to do experimental testing and determine the right way to make the best cement. So we need to have a better understanding of the variations and local chemistry of aluminum silicate materials, such that we can more effectively convert them into cement," explains Wagner.

The researchers will continue to study how to process the materials, including the use of microwaves to enhance the formation of these materials, "which we've already proved. It's interesting because it can aid in the ability to make materials, especially in places where you have extreme environments like on the Moon and Mars," says Wagner.

They're also broadening the understanding in terms of the complex chemistries involved.

"Our collaboration with the NSF is geared towards taking an unknown material and properly converting it to this geopolymer cement with high strength and durability in a sustainable manner, such that we can make a viable material, put it in a 3D printer, and print a house or something. It's not a challenge that can be solved by the traditional methods that have been used in the past - we need new ways of thinking about the problem. And that's what we're trying to do," Wagner continues.

The team hopes that NASA will be interested in the technology and will consider adapting some of it in their actual plans for the habitation of the Moon and Mars.

"But that's ongoing work," Wagner adds.

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Space cement could be used to build houses on Mars and the Moon - Interesting Engineering

Talking about predictions in the world, many predictions of the French prophet Nostradamus have come true. Nostradamus wrote 6,338 prophecies before his death in 1566, including when and how our world would end. Many believe that Nostradamus made prophecies that set the contours of our world from revolution to war. People who believe in Nostradamus believe that he had already predicted the rise of Hitler, the Second World War and the terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center in America and Corona. Nostradamus has made many dangerous predictions for the year 2023. Lets know about them.third world war

Nostradamus wrote his prophecy in this way Seven months of great war, people who died of evil deeds. Many consider it to be a world war. People believe that the war between Russia and Ukraine will turn into World War III. At the same time, many people see it by linking it to the conflict between China and Taiwan. They believe that America will come to save Taiwan, which will take the form of a major war.

Nostradamus has predicted about Mars. Nostradamus wrote Light is falling on Mars. Many people believe that Nostradamus has prophesied about the arrival of humans on the Red Planet. At the same time, many people believe that a big success can be achieved this year in the mission related to bringing humans to Mars. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has spoken about establishing a human colony on Mars. He wants to send humans to Mars by 2029. In such a situation, it may be that in 2023, a mission related to Mars is in Elon Musks mind.

The changing of the Pope is also one of the prophecies of Nostradamus. If this happens, someone else will come in place of Pope Francis. According to Nostradamus, Pope Francis will be the last true Pope. Whoever replaces him will give rise to a scandal.

Nostradamus wrote Celestial fire on the royal building. Many people explain this with the rise of a new civilization. At the same time, many people interpret it as the end of the world, while many people interpret it with the new law of the world.

Nostradamus has interestingly talked about the formation of a new alliance of two great powers together. In the prophecy of Nostradamus, this alliance will be between a strong man and a weak male or female leader. Although he also said that its effects will be good but they will not last long.

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From space to the third world war, these are Nostradamus's top 5 predictions for 2023 - News Day Express