A Cosmic Perspective

The Universe, which we once though to be at the center of, is now known to be a immensely vast and still expanding space. Our presence in it turned out to be far smaller than we assumed, just a drop in the Cosmic ocean.

The distance that goes from our position to the true horizon is about 4,7 Km (due to Earth's curvature);

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Our planet's diameter is 12.756,32 Km, something like 2.714 times the horizon's measure;

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The Sun stands at about 150 million Km far: almost 11.759 Earths would fit in between. At this distance the Sun's light, travelling at approx. 300.000 Km/s in vacuum, takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach us. From here on the measurement unit used will be the "light-year", which a single unit corresponds to 9,46 trillion Km;

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Proxima Centauri is the Solar System's nearest star and is located 4,3 light-years away from the Sun, meaning over 40 trillion Km and something like 270.000 times the Earth-Sun distance;

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Our Milky Way galaxy has a approx. 50.000 light-years radius and the Sun is somewhat half way far from it's center, at about 28.000 light-years;

And besides the Milky Way galaxy the Universe is known to have more than 170 billion galaxies, each separated by more than a million light-years: the farthest galaxy found stays at 13,37 billion light-years from Earth. And yet who knows how many more Universes exists...

Our perspective of the Cosmos has changed. We're no longer at the center, we're no longer the purpose of this Universe; now we're just a couple of pixels in this seemingly infinite Cosmic picture, trying to find our place among this endless space we share with so many other stars and perhaps other forms of life.

FaunaSurvey

SamarraHills is preparing a new series of scientific expeditions that will stretch through 2013.

This will be part of FaunaSurvey: a scientific project set to understand the extant fauna in three designated parts of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park. The main goal is to gather information about the many species that inhabit those landscapes and to show their nature to a broad public, warning society about the enormous ecological dangers that are now unleashed upon our neighbouring fauna.

Stay with us in this new expedition!




O SamarraHills está a preparar um novo conjunto de expedições científicas que irá decorrer ao longo do ano 2013.

Isto fará parte do FaunaSurvey: um projecto científico que procura conhecer a fauna presente em três áreas demarcadas no Parque Nacional Sintra Cascais. O objectivo principal é reunir informação sobre as várias espécies que habitam estas paisagens e dar a conhecer a um público alargado a existência duma variada biodiversidade nossa coexistente, alertando para as enormes ameaças ecológicas a que ela está sujeita.

Acompanhem-nos nesta nova expedição!

PhotoExposition - Berlengas 12'

On August 2012 our team went on a second expedition to the Berlengas Archipelago. This time we focused our attention on the fauna that inhabits the landscapes and waters of the main island. We took a preliminary and less methodical look on the biodiversity of this insular ecosystem that may enable us to return in the near future and catch a more extensive glimpse of the many wonders of life happening on this cliffs and shallows.

Bellow there is a collection of photos captured by our team during the expedition: Enormous colonies of yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis) filled with grey chicks and protective nesting adults; dry highlands full with interacting bocage's wall lizards (Podarcis bocagei berlengensis) and grasshoppers; Thriving thinlip mullets (possibly Liza ramada) and sargos (Diplodus sargus) on almost crystal clear waters - Life in its greatest beauty and complexity.
Enjoy!

Wonderful Picture

Look deeply into this image.

This is part of a greater panorama captured by NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity and shows us a quite familiar landscape. It is such an absolutely wonderful picture: Every rock, every mountain, every surface featured in this photo bears striking similarities to all the rocks and mountains, all the landscapes on Earth. This photo underscores that Mars, a point of pale red light on our night skies, is in fact a place as real as our home planet Earth...

...and we could reach it in our lifetime.



Entire photograph in http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/708550main_PIA16453-FigA_sol6_from_Rocknest_raw.jpg

Pachygrapsus marmoratus

Female's shell found on Praia do Cavalinho, Ericeira
Length: 5,5cm (main body 2x2cm)

Troodontid

Troodontid
Illustration by Paulo Cruz

Titan

Imagine an alien world, millions of miles from our planetary home.

Now imagine that same place somehow similar to Earth. A place with an atmosphere, with a landscape that would be recognizable to any human being. A place where you could see clouds and mountains in the horizon, where you could behold rivers and lakes and vast areas covered with sand dunes. Picture in your mind that place, where drops of methane rain fall smoothly to the ground like snowflakes on Earth.

Well, that world exists: It's called Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Titan is one of the most Earth-like bodies found so far. It resembles a glacial version of our planet billions of years ago when there was no life on its surface. It is a primordial and extremely cold place filled with wonders.

The will to explore Titan increased when Pioneer and Voyager programs revealed parts of its atmospheric structure. The possibility of finding fair amounts of organic molecules on the atmosphere and soil of this saturnian moon and the desire to chart its covered surface set off NASA/ESA/ASI's Cassini-Huygens mission. This project's main goal is the observational study of the distant and complex Saturnian system. The launched probe was the combination of Saturn's orbiter Cassini and the Huygens lander; the last landed on Titan's surface on the 14th of January, 2005.

This mission brought us something that was never been seen by humankind. It unveiled an unique moon littered with then unseen astrogeological features, a truly remarkable place. And what makes this world so unique is its striking similarity with Earth: It's the only moon in the Solar System with a proper atmosphere, even a denser atmosphere than our own, composed mainly by nitrogen and traces of methane and ethane. Its orange colour is due to a thick hydrocarbon fog that may be formed in the upper atmospheric interaction with the Sun's ultraviolet light.
Cassini-Huygens also sent us pictures of a landscape carved and shaped by hydrocarbon flows and hydrocarbon lakes. Methane and ethane play a role much similar to water on Earth: Hydrocarbon molecules rain over the soil of Titan to form streams and lakes and then evaporates back into the atmosphere.
Wind and cryovulcanism may also play an important role on the formation of Titan's surface. Vast fields of dark sand dunes fill the moon's equatorial regions gathered there by tidal winds. Data also suggests that cryovulcanoes may have spawned plumes of liquid water and ammonia raising the possibilities for a more dynamic geological cycle on this distant world.

It is in fact wonderful to find such familiar natural processes in such a distant and cold moon. Still, Titan's inner working is very different from Earth's. The surface temperature on Titan is about -179º C. At this temperature water ice is hard as steel and methane, which exists as a gas at Earth's mean temperature, can flow as a liquid. And so the ground, the valleys, the mountains in Titan are mainly composed by water ice that behaves like solid rock.
Beneath this icy crust is thought to exist a global subsurface ocean of water and ammonia, fact that may be proved by a 30km shift on the surface scan made by the Cassini probe between October 2005 and May 2007. This information points to a decoupled crust and a liquid layer beneath it.

Titan is an extraordinary and complex world waiting to be explored. The human exploration of Titan is still in an initial stage even after all the information sent by Cassini-Huygens. I think new missions to this cold moon are much needed for our understanding of its nature and the broad nature of the Cosmos itself.

Webgraphy:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20120628.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/Saturns_Moon.html

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=12

3 anos de Samarra Hills

Hoje, dia 16 de Novembro, o projecto Samarra Hills completa 3 anos de existência. Durante este ano (2012), a equipa do SH.blogspot tem tido dificuldade em manter uma linha de publicações consistente. Isto deve-se a um ano agitado num país cada vez mais agitado; Alguns de nós voltaram à faculdade e isso fez com que grande parte da nossa atenção fosse depositada no complexo processo de (re)habituação às exigências académicas. Porém, ultrapassada essa primeira fase de choque e cheios de vontade de produzir para este projecto que tanto estimamos, voltamos hoje, no aniversário deste blog, às publicações.
Para comemorar os 3 anos de Samarra Hills construímos uma foto-exposição com 10 fotografias por nós conseguidas ao longo deste período de tempo,
que ficaram de fora de várias foto-exposições anteriores, e que considerámos interessantes do ponto de vista estético

Ei-las

Expedition 12'

Curiosity

“In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, and we have fulfilled a century of dreams!”- Carl Sagan.

E, de facto, hoje cumpre-se mais um sonho com a aterragem da sonda Curiosity em solo marciano, marcando um novo momento para a história da Exploração Espacial e da Humanidade.

Foi no final de Novembro do ano passado, a partir do Cabo Canaveral, na Florida, que a NASA enviou o projecto mais caro e sofisticado até à data rumo ao planeta vermelho. A viagem teve a duração de oito meses tendo como destino específico a cratera Gale, perto do equador de Marte. Este local revelou-se importante no estudo da história natural marciana devido à presença de estratos geológicos que são indicadores de uma passada e abundante presença de água no planeta.

A Curiosity tem como principais objectivos determinar se Marte alguma vez sustentou vida, estudar o clima e a geologia do planeta e ajudar a planear uma futura missão humana a Marte. Assim sendo, ao contrário das suas antecessoras, Spirit e Opportunity, esta é a primeira sonda enviada a Marte com uma missão relacionada com a busca de vida desde o programa Viking, nos anos 1970 – que obteve resultados inconclusivos. Contudo a Curiosity não irá directamente à procura de vida , mas sim de compostos orgânicos que corroborem a ideia de que poderão ter existido condições ideais para o desenvolvimento de vida no planeta. Para que esses objectivos sejam cumpridos, a Curiosity leva consigo vários instrumentos científicos inovadores e de alta tecnologia que esperamos nos trazerem resultados conclusivos e, posteriormente, quando analisados, nos possam desvendar mais um pouco do passado do planeta Marte e até projectar um futuro para ele. Mas quaisquer que sejam os resultados obtidos nesta missão, estes representam um enorme passo para uma melhor compreensão do que existe para lá da nossa casa, a Terra, e com certeza um enorme passo para nós, Humanidade.

Para terminar, creio terem baptizado esta sonda com o melhor nome (Curiosity), lembrando assim uma das melhores características inerentes ao ser humano, a curiosidade, que nos leva a arriscar e alargar horizontes, que nos leva a evoluir como espécie. Abre-se assim o caminho para uma nova era de conhecimento e reafirma-se cada vez mais a demanda Humana para a “conquista” de Marte e do Universo.