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spaceexp · 4 years

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'Shallow Lightning' and 'Mushballs' Reveal Ammonia to NASA's Juno Scientists

NASA - JUNO Mission patch. Aug. 5, 2020 New results from NASA's Juno mission at Jupiter suggest our solar system's largest planet is home to what's called "shallow lightning." An unexpected form of electrical discharge, shallow lightning originates from clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, whereas lightning on Earth originates from water clouds. Other new findings suggest the violent thunderstorms for which the gas giant is known may form slushy ammonia-rich hailstones Juno's science team calls "mushballs"; they theorize that mushballs essentially kidnap ammonia and water in the upper atmosphere and carry them into the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere.

Image above: This illustration uses data obtained by NASA's Juno mission to depict high-altitude electrical storms on Jupiter. Juno's sensitive Stellar Reference Unit camera detected unusual lightning flashes on Jupiter's dark side during the spacecraft's close flybys of the planet. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Heidi N. Becker/Koji Kuramura. The shallow-lightning findings will be published Thursday, Aug. 6, in the journal Nature, while the mushballs research is currently available online in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Since NASA's Voyager mission first saw Jovian lightning flashes in 1979, it has been thought that the planet's lightning is similar to Earth's, occurring only in thunderstorms where water exists in all its phases – ice, liquid, and gas. At Jupiter this would place the storms around 28 to 40 miles (45 to 65 kilometers) below the visible clouds, with temperatures that hover around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which water freezes). Voyager saw lightning as bright spots on Jupiter's cloud tops, suggesting that the flashes originated in deep water clouds. But lightning flashes observed on Jupiter's dark side by Juno's Stellar Reference Unit tell a different story. "Juno's close flybys of the cloud tops allowed us to see something surprising – smaller, shallower flashes – originating at much higher altitudes in Jupiter's atmosphere than previously assumed possible," said Heidi Becker, Juno's Radiation Monitoring Investigation lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the lead author of the Nature paper. Becker and her team suggest that Jupiter's powerful thunderstorms fling water-ice crystals high up into the planet's atmosphere, over 16 miles (25 kilometers) above Jupiter's water clouds, where they encounter atmospheric ammonia vapor that melts the ice, forming a new ammonia-water solution. At such lofty altitude, temperatures are below minus 126 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 88 degrees Celsius) – too cold for pure liquid water to exist. "At these altitudes, the ammonia acts like an antifreeze, lowering the melting point of water ice and allowing the formation of a cloud with ammonia-water liquid," said Becker. "In this new state, falling droplets of ammonia-water liquid can collide with the upgoing water-ice crystals and electrify the clouds. This was a big surprise, as ammonia-water clouds do not exist on Earth."

Image above: In the center of this JunoCam image, small, bright "pop-up" clouds seen rise above the surrounding features. Clouds like these are thought to be the tops of violent thunderstorms responsible for shallow lighting. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill © CC BY. The shallow lightning factors into another puzzle about the inner workings of Jupiter's atmosphere: Juno's Microwave Radiometer instrument discovered that ammonia was depleted – which is to say, missing – from most of Jupiter's atmosphere. Even more puzzling was that the amount of ammonia changes as one moves within Jupiter's atmosphere. "Previously, scientists realized there were small pockets of missing ammonia, but no one realized how deep these pockets went or that they covered most of Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We were struggling to explain the ammonia depletion with ammonia-water rain alone, but the rain couldn't go deep enough to match the observations. I realized a solid, like a hailstone, might go deeper and take up more ammonia. When Heidi discovered shallow lightning, we realized we had evidence that ammonia mixes with water high in the atmosphere, and thus the lightning was a key piece of the puzzle." Jovian Mushballs A second paper, released yesterday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, envisions the strange brew of 2/3 water and 1/3 ammonia gas that becomes the seed for Jovian hailstones, known as mushballs. Consisting of layers of water-ammonia slush and ice covered by a thicker water-ice crust, mushballs are generated in a similar manner as hail is on Earth – by growing larger as they move up and down through the atmosphere. "Eventually, the mushballs get so big, even the updrafts can't hold them, and they fall deeper into the atmosphere, encountering even warmer temperatures, where they eventually evaporate completely," said Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-investigator from the Université Côte d'Azur in Nice, France, and lead author of the second paper. "Their action drags ammonia and water down to deep levels in the planet's atmosphere. That explains why we don't see much of it in these places with Juno's Microwave Radiometer."

Image above: This graphic depicts the evolutionary process of “shallow lightning” and "mushballs" on Jupiter. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/CNRS. "Combining these two results was critical to solving the mystery of Jupiter's missing ammonia," said Bolton. "As it turned out, the ammonia isn't actually missing; it is just transported down while in disguise, having cloaked itself by mixing with water. The solution is very simple and elegant with this theory: When the water and ammonia are in a liquid state, they are invisible to us until they reach a depth where they evaporate – and that is quite deep." Understanding the meteorology of Jupiter enables us to develop theories of atmospheric dynamics for all the planets in our solar system as well as for the exoplanets being discovered outside our solar system. Comparing how violent storms and atmospheric physics work across the solar system allows planetary scientists to test theories under different conditions. More About the Mission The solar-powered Jupiter explorer launched nine years ago today, on Aug. 5, 2011. And last month marked the fourth anniversary of its arrival at Jupiter. Since entering the gas giant's orbit, Juno has performed 27 science flybys and logged over 300 million miles (483 million kilometers).

Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Animation Credit: NASA

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. More information about Juno is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/Alana Johnson/Grey Hautaluoma/JPL/DC Agle/Southwest Research Institute/Deb Schmid/French National Centre for Scientific Research/François Maginiot. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

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yo-sostenible · 3 years

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La vida podría existir en las nubes de Júpiter pero no en las de Venus

Ilustración de nubes tormentosas en Júpiter basada en imágenes captadas por la misión Juno. / NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Heidi N. Becker/Koji Kuramura La disponibilidad relativa de agua en las atmósferas de Venus y la mayoría de los planetas del sistema solar es tan baja que no podrían vivir ni los organismos adaptados a los ambientes más extremos de la Tierra. Solo lugares…

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todaynewsstories · 6 years

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Republicans aim to confirm Kavanaugh this weekend; protesters arrested

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans gained confidence on Thursday that his U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would win Senate confirmation after two wavering lawmakers responded positively to an FBI report on accusations of sexual misconduct against the judge.

The report, sent by the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the middle of the night, was denounced by Democrats as a whitewash that was too narrow in scope and ignored critical witnesses.

Thousands of anti-Kavanaugh protesters rallied outside the Supreme Court and entered a Senate office building, holding signs such as “Believe Survivors” and “Kava-Nope.” Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested including actress Amy Schumer.

But Republicans moved forward with plans for a key procedural vote on Friday and a final vote on Saturday on confirming the conservative federal appeals judge for a lifetime job on the top U.S. court.

Comments by two crucial Republican senators – Jeff Flake and Susan Collins – indicated the FBI report, which was the latest twist in the pitched political battle over Kavanaugh, may have allayed their concerns about him. Flake, a frequent Trump critic, was instrumental in getting the president to order the FBI investigation last Friday.

Trump, himself accused by numerous women during the 2016 presidential race of sexual misconduct, wrote on Twitter that the FBI report showed that the allegations against Kavanaugh were “totally uncorroborated.”

Collins said the FBI investigation appeared to be thorough. Flake said he saw no additional corroborating information against Kavanaugh, although he was “still reading” it. Another undecided Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, did not offer her view on the FBI report.

Republicans control the Senate by a 51-49 margin. If all the Democrats oppose Kavanaugh, Trump cannot afford to lose the support of more than one Republican for his nominee, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tiebreaking vote. No Republicans have said they will vote against Kavanaugh.

While the comments by Flake and Collins were positive, neither explicitly announced support for Kavanaugh.

A previously undecided Democratic Senator, Heidi Heitkamp, said she would vote against Kavanaugh, citing “concerns about his past conduct” and questions about his “temperament, honesty and impartiality” after his angry, defiant testimony a week ago to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senator Joe Manchin, the only remaining undecided Democrat, said he would finish reading the report on Friday morning

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein noted that the FBI did not interview Kavanaugh himself or Christine Blasey Ford, a university professor from California who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1982.

“It smacks of a whitewash,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters, saying the report should not give political cover for Republicans to vote for Kavanaugh because “it is blatantly incomplete.”

Most Democrats opposed Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh from the outset. If confirmed, he would deepen conservative control of the court. The sharply partisan battle became an intense political drama when Ford and two other women emerged to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in the 1980s when he was in high school and college. Kavanaugh has denied the accusations.

The Kavanaugh fight has riveted Americans weeks before Nov. 6 elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from the Republicans.

Kavanaugh’s nomination has become a flashpoint in the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault. The nomination battle boiled down to a “he said, she said” conflict requiring senators to decide between diametrically opposed accounts offered by Kavanaugh and Ford.

Trump on Tuesday mocked Ford during a political rally in Mississippi.

On Thursday afternoon, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told a small gathering in Boca Raton, Florida that Kavanaugh should not be confirmed, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Stevens, an appointee of Republican President Gerald Ford who often sided with liberal justices on key rulings, told a group of retirees that he initially thought Kavanaugh was qualified, but that “his performance at the hearings ultimately changed my mind.”

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The FBI report was not released to the public. Senators were allowed to read it behind closed doors in a secure location in the Capitol, without taking notes or making copies.

A senior Senate Republican aide said there was growing confidence that Collins, Flake and Manchin – all swing votes – would support Kavanaugh. If so, that could be enough for a Trump victory.

White House spokesman Raj Shah said the Trump administration was “fully confident” Kavanaugh had the necessary support.

FILE PHOTO: Activists gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court to hold a vigil in opposition to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in Washington, U.S., October 3, 2018. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

“I feel pretty good about where we are,” added Senator John Thune, a member of Senate Republican leadership.

Some protesters, many dressed in black, crowded into the Hart Senate Office Building after rallying in front of the Supreme Court on a sunny, warm autumn day.

“I’m sick and tired of seeing women’s experiences not be given weight,” demonstrator Christine Zagrobelny, 29, a software engineer from New York City, said outside the Supreme Court.

Republican leaders sounded unmoved.

“When the noise fades, when the uncorroborated mud washes away, what’s left is the distinguished nominee who stands before us,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said after receiving a staff briefing on the report, “There’s nothing in it that we didn’t already know.”

“These uncorroborated accusations have been unequivocally and repeatedly rejected by Judge Kavanaugh, and neither the Judiciary Committee nor the FBI could locate any third parties who can attest to any of the allegations,” Grassley added.

White House spokesman Shah told CNN the FBI reached out to 10 people and “comprehensively interviewed” nine of them.

“The White House didn’t micromanage the FBI,” he said.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Ford’s lawyers noted that the agency declined to interview Ford or any of more than a dozen people they identified to provide relevant information, calling the five-day investigation “a stain on the process, on the FBI and on our American ideal of justice.”

Ford testified last week at a dramatic Judiciary Committee hearing that when she was 15, a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh pinned her down, tried to remove her clothing and covered her mouth after she screamed. Kavanaugh denied the allegation and painted himself as the victim of a “political hit.”

Attorneys for Deborah Ramirez, who has said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were students at Yale University, wrote a separate letter to Wray expressing disappointment that FBI agents had not followed up on their interview with her by talking to more than 20 witnesses she identified as being able to corroborate her account.

Slideshow (8 Images)

Reporting by Amanda Becker, David Morgan and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Nathan Layne, Sarah N. Lynch, Lisa Lambert, Lawrence Hurley and David Alexander; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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igggmbh-blog · 7 years

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NEWS Beitrag von SEO & Google Marketing - Businesspläne - Finanzierungsvermittlung

New Post has been published on http://www.igg-gmbh.de/bitte-ergaenzte-fassung-beachtenvier-lolas-fuer-zdf-und-zdf3sat-kino-koproduktionen-deutscher-filmpreis-in-berlin-verliehen/

Bitte ergänzte Fassung beachten! Vier LOLAS für ZDF- und ZDF/3sat-Kino-Koproduktionen / Deutscher Filmpreis in Berlin verliehen

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Mainz (ots) – Bitte ergänzte Fassung beachten: Zitat Norbert Himmler

Drei ZDF-Kino-Koproduktionen und eine ZDF/3sat-Koproduktion sind am Freitagabend, 28. April 2017, in Berlin mit dem Deutschen Filmpreis ausgezeichnet worden.

\“Wir freuen uns sehr über die zahlreichen Auszeichnungen in vielen Kategorien – sie zeugen von der großen Vielfalt und der hohen Qualität der Kino-Koproduktionen des ZDF\“, so Programmdirektor Norbert Himmler, \“ich gratuliere den Produzenten, Regisseuren und Schauspielern zu diesen schönen LOLAS.\“

Der Film \“24 WOCHEN\“ wurde mit der LOLA in Silber in der Kategorie \“Bester Spielfilm\“ ausgezeichnet. Der Preis ging an die Produzenten Melanie Berke, Tobias Büchner und Thomas Kufus. \“24 WOCHEN\“ ist eine Produktion von zero one film in Koproduktion mit dem Kleinen Fernsehspiel des ZDF (Redaktion: Burkhard Althoff) und der Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, gefördert von der Mitteldeutschen Medienförderung MDM. Der Film der jungen Regisseurin Anne Zohra Berrached, die zusammen mit Carl Gerber auch das Drehbuch schrieb, beschäftigt sich auf einfühlsame Weise mit dem Thema Spätabtreibung.

\“24 WOCHEN\“ wurde bereits mehrfach geehrt. Der Film erhielt von einer Jury der deutschen Programmkinos Pund Filmkunsttheater den Gilde-Filmpreis als bester Wettbewerbsbeitrag der Berlinale. Auf dem Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern gewann \“24 WOCHEN\“ den Preis für die Beste Regie, den Publikumspreis sowie den Förderpreis der DEFA-Stiftung. Anne Zohra Berrached wurde 2016 mit dem Studio Hamburg Nachwuchspreis in der Kategorie \“Beste Regie\“ ausgezeichnet. Außerdem erhielt sie 2016, gemeinsam mit Julia Jentsch, den Preis der Saarland Medien GmbH des Günter-Rohrbach-Filmpreises.

In der Kategorie \“Beste weibliche Nebenrolle\“ erhielt Fritzi Haberlandt die LOLA für ihre Mitwirkung in dem Film \“Nebel im August\“, die Verfilmung des gleichnamigen Tatsachenromans von Robert Domes. Das Drama erzählt die Geschichte des Jungen Ernst Lossa, der 1944 in einer \“Heilanstalt\“ ermordet wurde. \“Nebel im August\“ ist eine Produktion der collina filmproduktion gmbh (Produzent: Ulrich Limmer) in Koproduktion mit dem ZDF (Redaktion: Caroline von Senden), gefördert von FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Filmförderungsanstalt, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Österreichisches Filminstitut, Filmstandort Austria, Filmfonds Wien und Eurimages.

In der Kategorie \“Bester Kinderfilm\“ wurde die Kino-Koproduktion \“Auf Augenhöhe\“ beim Deutschen Filmpreis 2017 mit der LOLA ausgezeichnet. Der Preis ging an das Produzenten-Duo Martin Richter und Christian Becker. Heimkind Michi muss sich in seiner Wohngruppe behaupten und den Respekt der anderen Kids erkämpfen. Als er die Adresse seines bisher unbekannten Vaters findet, erfüllt sich sein größter Traum – bis er erfährt, dass sein Vater Tom kleinwüchsig ist. Das Drama, das von der Filmbewertungsstelle mit dem Prädikat \“Besonders wertvoll\“ ausgezeichnet wurde, entstand 2015 im Rahmen der Initiative \“Der besondere Kinderfilm\“ und wird gefördert von ZDF und KiKA, sowie FFF Bayern, BKM, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, FFA und DFFF. Die Redaktion im ZDF liegt bei Irene Wellershoff und Ina Werner.

Die ZDF/3sat-Koproduktion \“Cahier africain\“ erhielt die LOLA in der Kategorie \“Bester Dokumentarfilm\“. Die Schweizer Filmemacherin Heidi Specogna folgt in ihrem Film den Schicksalen von Frauen im kriegszerrütteten Zentralafrika. Ausgangspunkt ist ein Heft, in dem die Verbrechen kongolesischer Söldner an Frauen, Mädchen und Männern dokumentiert werden. Über sieben Jahre hinweg begleitete Specogna die Protagonistinnen ihres Films, die weiterhin mit den Spätfolgen der Gewalt kämpfen. \“Cahier africain\“ wurde im Dezember 2016 mit dem Deutschen Menschenrechts-Filmpreis und kurz davor mit zwei Preisen auf dem Filmfestival DOK Leipzig ausgezeichnet. Die Redaktion haben Katya Mader und Udo Bremer.

Der Deutsche Filmpreis, LOLA, ist einer der renommiertesten Preise und mit insgesamt fast drei Millionen Euro Preisgeld der höchstdotierte deutsche Kulturpreis für den deutschen Film. Die LOLA wird von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Staatsministerin Monika Grütters, vergeben, nachdem die mehr als 1800 Mitglieder der Deutschen Filmakademie, die aus allen künstlerischen Sparten der Filmbranche stammen, über die Gewinner abgestimmt haben.

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