Researchers have uncovered an astonishing mechanism of seed dispersal in nature: the squirting cucumber.
This plant, Ecballium, boasts an extraordinary method of ejecting seeds over considerable distances, with a new study from Kiel University in Germany providing deeper insight into the process.
The mature squirting cucumber fruits are packed with thick liquid, creating significant internal pressure. When ripe, the stems disconnect, causing the fruit to forcefully discharge its seeds.
“This typically occurs when the fruit is fully mature and is disturbed,” Helengoge from Kiel University mentioned in BBC Science Focus.
“The plant aims to scatter its seeds as far as possible, which can propel them over 12 meters (39 feet) from the parent plant.”
Even minimal contact can trigger the fruit’s release, prompting Gorges’s team to utilize CT imaging to construct 3D models of the fruit without causing any damage.
Additionally, a high-speed camera captured the moment the cucumber expelled its seeds at speeds of up to 47 km/h (29 mph).
Gorge observed the maturation process of the fruits, noting that the stems straighten as the cucumber approaches readiness, ultimately hanging at a 52º angle just before bursting. The optimal angle for ballistic projection is theoretically 50º, making the cucumber nearly precise in its seed dispersal.
Like many plants, cucumbers aim to distribute their seeds widely to minimize competition for essential resources like light, water, and nutrients between parent and offspring plants.
While most plants have evolved to rely on wind, water, or animals for seed dispersal, squirting cucumbers have taken an active, ballistic approach.
The research team hopes their findings will inspire others to develop naturally derived solutions for future challenges.
“There are numerous applications in soft robotics, drug delivery systems, and similar technologies where efficient launching systems are needed,” Gorges stated.
Helen Gogges is a doctoral student specializing in functional morphology and biomechanics at Kiel University in Germany, focusing on optimizing plant mechanisms for seed distribution.
Artist's impression of the moon's Athena spaceship
NASA
This week, a private space mission was launched on the moon, aiming to reach the southernmost point we've ever visited on the moon. The Athena spacecraft, built by an intuitive US-based machine, will be released from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 12:17am on February 27th (7:17pm on February 26th). It will be installed on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Also, several other missions hitch on the same rocket, including expeditions that mine asteroids.
The intuitive machine became the first private company to succeed on the moon last year when Odysseus' spacecraft landed near the moon's Antarctica. The spacecraft's instruments remained in operation, but Odysseus made a troublesome landing, flipped over, limiting the amount of data the equipment could collect, and shortening the mission.
The company hopes for a cleaner landing as Athena begins its descent towards the end of March. The planned landing site is near the highest mountain on the moon, the lunar mewton, about 60 kilometers from Antarctica, and Athena's attempts have become the most southern approach to date. If the ship is successful, it will start a moon night and operate for several weeks on par with the moon in a day before it loses power.
Athena carries over 10 musical instruments and missions from both NASA and other private companies. That's not all. The Falcon 9, the same one that fires Athena at the moon, also carries three unrelated spacecraft. These are asteroid-controlled spacecraft from space company Astroforge, and the first mission of this kind will investigate potential minable metal space rocks later this year. You can also map water to the moon along with NASA's lunar satellite aboard, looking for future landing sites. The third spacecraft, built by epic aerospace, is designed to help other satellites move between orbits.
Once Athena lands, NASA instruments will excavate up to 1 meter into the lunar soil to sample it, then look at water sediments and other chemicals. NASA would like to know if these will be present in sufficient quantities for future astronauts to be used as part of the Artemis Moon Landing, which is planned for the agency to be released in 2027. It's there.
Several small rovers will also be released near the landing site, including the plant pot-sized Yaokirovers of Japanese company Dimon. The heavier 10kg mobile autonomous exploration platform (MAPP), built by Space Company Lunar Outspost, explores and creates 3D maps of landing sites, testing how the 4G phone network built by Nokia works in a Lunar environment. Masu. Sitting on a mapp will be a much smaller, ant-sized robot built by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The intuitive machine deploys a suitcase-sized hopping robot called Grace. Grace runs a series of four hops, jumping into the air up to 100 meters, travelling a distance of about 200 meters until it lands in a deep, permanently shaded crater. Scientists have seen evidence that these areas do not get warmer than -170°C (-274°F), but have never been visited in person. Grace scans the bottom of this crater. This crater is scanned for about 45 minutes, about 20 meters below, before popping out again.
byRamon J. Osorio, NASA Marshall Space Flight CenterDecember 26, 2023
Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, successfully completed a 251-second high-temperature combustion test of a full-scale rotary explosion rocket engine combustor in fall 2023, achieving more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. Credit: NASA
NASAMarshall Space Flight Center tested a 3D-printed Rotating Explosive Rocket Engine (RDRE) for more than four minutes and was able to generate significant thrust. This test is essential for deep space missions and represents a step forward in NASA’s development of an efficient propulsion system for the Moon. Mars vision.
NASA has achieved a new benchmark in the development of an innovative propulsion system called the Rotating Explosive Rocket Engine (RDRE). Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, tested his new 3D-printed RDRE for 251 seconds (or over four minutes) and were able to generate more than 5,800 pounds of thrust.
This type of sustained burn emulates the typical requirements for a lander touchdown or deep space burn that could set a spacecraft on a course from the Moon to Mars, the center said. said Thomas Teasley, lead Marshall combustion equipment engineer.
RDRE’s first high-temperature fire test was conducted in Marshall in the summer of 2022 in partnership with In Space LLC and Purdue University (Lafayette, Indiana). The test generated more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The main objective of the latest tests was to extend the combustor to different thrust classes, support all types of engine systems, and maximize the diversity of missions it can deliver, from landers to upper stages to supersonics. Teasley said the key is to better understand how to increase the Reverse propulsion is a deceleration technique that has the potential to land larger payloads, and even humans, on the surface of Mars.
Test stand video taken at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, shows the ignition of a full-size rotary-explosion rocket engine combustor that ignited for a record 251 seconds and achieved more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. It is shown.
“RDRE significantly increases design efficiency,” he said. “This shows we are getting closer to developing lightweight propulsion systems that will allow us to send more mass and payloads into deep space, a critical component for NASA. From the moon to Mars vision. “
Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland; Venus Aerospace, Houston, Texas, is working with NASA Marshall to identify ways to scale the technology for higher performance.
RDRE is managed and funded by the Game Changing Development Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Researchers are analyzing the Chomadul volcano to comprehend the sudden eruption of a long-dormant volcano. The chemical and mineral composition of magma has been the focus of research to gain insight into volcanic reactivation and prediction of eruptions. This has underscored the potential hazards of inactive volcanoes. The dormant period of a volcano could potentially be interrupted by a rapid and hazardous eruption. The study by Hungarian researchers has helped uncover warning signs before the eruption of long-dormant volcanoes. They focused on the Chomadul volcano in the Carpathian-Pannonian region. The team used mineralogical and chemical composition data to understand magma evolution and infer the structure of the volcanic subsurface magma chamber. The study revealed that the volcanic activity during the last active period was mainly explosive. The eruption of Chomadul volcano was analyzed in terms of its eruptive history. The researchers were able to determine the causes and processes that control the eruption style of volcanic activity through a detailed study of rock-forming minerals. The key mineral, amphibole, played a crucial role in the study. It suggested that water-rich recharge magmas played an important role in triggering explosive eruptions. The research also highlighted the importance of quantitative volcanic petrology studies in understanding pre-eruption signals and enhancing eruption prediction capabilities. The study of Chomadul volcano has attracted international attention and is significant in identifying potential dangers associated with long-dormant volcanoes.
Astronomers at NASA and the University of Washington estimated the total internal heating rate and depth to potential subsurface oceans for 17 potentially cold ocean planets. These planets are low-mass exoplanets with surface temperatures and densities consistent with icy surfaces and large amounts of water. content. Like the icy moons of our solar system, these planets could be astrobiologically important worlds with habitable environments beneath their icy surfaces.
This artist’s impression shows Proxima b orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system at just 4.23 light years. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image between the exoplanet and Proxima itself. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.
Ocean planets have been proposed as a class of low-density terrestrial exoplanets with significant liquid water layers.
They exist in different climatic states, including ice-free, partially ice-covered, and completely frozen surfaces.
“Our analysis suggests that the surfaces of these 17 alien worlds may be covered in ice, but they are affected by internal heating due to the decay of radioactive elements and tidal forces from their host stars,” said NASA Goddard researcher Dr. Lynne Quick. “We predict that it will receive enough water to maintain its internal ocean.” Space flight center.
“Due to the amount of internal heating the planets experience, all the planets in our study may also exhibit polar volcanic eruptions in the form of geyser-like plumes.”
Dr. Quick and his colleagues examined the status of 17 confirmed exoplanets. These planets are roughly Earth-sized but less dense, suggesting they may have significant amounts of ice and water instead of dense rock.
Although the exact composition of these planets remains unknown, all initial estimates of surface temperatures from previous studies indicate that they are much cooler than Earth, and their surfaces may be covered with ice. This suggests that there is a possibility that
The authors improved their estimates of each exoplanet’s surface temperature by recalculating them using the known surface brightness and other properties of Europa and Enceladus as models.
They also estimated the total internal heating of these exoplanets by using the shape of each exoplanet’s orbit to capture the heat generated from the tides and adding it to the heat expected from radioactive activity. did.
Because oceans cool and freeze at the surface while being heated from within, estimates of surface temperature and total heating provide information about the thickness of each exoplanet’s ice layer.
Finally, they compared these numbers to Europa’s and used Europa’s estimated level of geyser activity as a conservative baseline for estimating the exoplanet’s geyser activity.
They predict surface temperatures will be up to 33 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than previous estimates.
Artist’s impression of the planetary system LHS 1140. Image credit: Sci.News.
Estimated ice shell thicknesses ranged from approximately 58 m (190 ft) for Proxima b and 1.6 km (1 mi) for LHS 1140b to 38.6 km (24 mi) for LHS 1140b. MOA-2007-BLG-192Lbcompared to an estimated European average of 29 km (18 mi).
The estimated geyser activity was only 8 kg/s for Kepler 441b, 2,000 kg/s for Europa, 290,000 kg/s for LHS 1140b, and 6 million kg/s for Proxima b.
“Our models predict that oceans could be found relatively close to the surfaces of Proxima b and LHS 1140b, and that geyser activity rates could exceed those of Europa by hundreds to thousands of times. “The telescope has the best chance of detecting geological activity on these planets because of their presence,” said Dr. Quick.
“This activity can be seen when an exoplanet passes in front of its star. Certain colors of the star’s light can be dimmed or blocked by water vapor from geysers. there is.”
“If water vapor is detected sporadically and the amount of water vapor detected changes over time, it would suggest the presence of a cryovolcanic eruption.”
“Water may contain other elements and compounds, which could reveal whether it can support life.”
“Elements and compounds absorb light of certain characteristic colors, so analysis of starlight allows scientists to determine the composition of geysers and assess the potential habitability of exoplanets. Become.”
a paper Regarding the survey results, astrophysical journal.
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Lynne C. Quick other. 2023. Prospects for polar volcanic activity on cold ocean planets. APJ 956, 29; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ace9b6
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