SpaceMika

As promised, this is a look at the chemistry and geology presented in the pilot episode of Stargate: Universe, “Air” (part 1, 2, 3). Our heroes are on a spaceship with a life support system with a non-functional filtration system, and need to come up with a way to sequester the carbon dioxide. They head down to a sandy planet in search of calcium carbonate.

“How come our heroes couldn’t just hold the Stargate open to a planet with a nice, tasty atmosphere?”
That would violate the defined functionality of the Stargate established earlier in Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. The Stargates prevent the transport of individual molecules, which is handy when the teams connect to space-gates (vacuum on the far side) or submerged gates (water, water everywhere!).

“Wait, if the problem is too much carbon dioxide, how come they’re looking for calcium carbonate? Won’t that just mean they have even more carbon to deal with?!”
Yes, but no.

As carbon dioxide dissolves into water, the water becomes more acidic. Calcium carbonate dissolves in pretty much any acid, and slews of carbonate ions running rampant will form bicarbonate. So, if you chuck a bunch of calcium carbonate into water and add carbon dioxide, the calcium carbonate will dissolve in the acidic water, and all the ionized carbonate will form bicarbonate instead.

This is a well-known phenomena (see here for instructions on how to demonstrate it), and it’s an acceptable hypothesis that shell sediments in the ocean help buffer the acidity from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (see here for an older summary of a Science paper on the topic), so it’s within the realm of plausible science to use the chemical reaction for science fiction.

“…if lime reacts with carbon dioxide to make calcium carbonate, and then calcium carbonate reacts with more carbon dioxide to make bicarbonates, why not start with lime?”
Our heroes didn’t manage to bring the medical-grade lime with them; very unfortunate. Yes, the system would be more efficient if our heroes made lime-enriched water and let that react happily away with the carbon dioxide because then it would sequester carbon twice over, but lime isn’t as easy for novices to identify via field test as calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate comes as three minerals: aragonite, calcite, and vaterite. They are polymorphs — identical chemicals but different structure — so all of them dissolve in acid. The standard test is to add a drop of 10% HCl, and if it bubbles merrily away, you found calcium carbonate (or drop the rock in the acid for more bubbles!).

“I saw no bubbles. I saw red.”
Eh, red is prettier, or the geologist had prissier field gear because she’s used to alien atmospheres and walking around with acid could be dangerous, or maybe they used something that reacts to changes in pH by going red (cabbage juice turns red in acids (pH below 7), purple when neutral (pH = 7) and blue (pH above 7) or green (pH above 9) with bases), or in the rush to evacuate the base they left behind the hydrochloric acid and had to improvise from the material they had on hand.

“But wait! The chemical reaction is reversible with heat, so why did they hunt for rocks instead of just boiling their old life support goo on the planet?”
Eh, they couldn’t find a cauldron to hold it that didn’t dissolve into muck when handling the goo, or the goo had other chemical reactions going on (you need more than just “less carbon dioxide” to keep a human happy and the montage did include some prep of a white foam) and would do Very Bad Things when heated, or the Ancient goo wasn’t even using this particular chemical reaction to scrub carbon dioxide, or… ie, the chemistry is good and the concepts are good, and the details fall within plausible exceptions for science fiction.

“Why’d they go hunting for calcium carbonate in dried-up lakes or oceans?”
Limestone, chalk, and sea shells on Earth are all high in calcium carbonate; when faced with an alien planet and limited time, the hope that alien sea shells are chemically similar is both plausible, and gives some sort of constraint to guide our luckless heroes.

I’m giving a departmental talk tomorrow if anyone is interested:

Check out the clip titled “Earth Not Good for Life”. You can see why we had enough to chat about on set when filming “Brain Storm”.

Did you see the premiere last night? No? If you’re stateside, SyFy is streaming episodes, and for others in northern lands of snow & Stargates, Space has our backs. Once you decide you love the series, iTunes will let you buy a season pass.

The first episode, “Air” is a multi-part episode. So far it has drama, action, astrophysics, atmospheric science, and deep philosophical questions. Once we go in-depth into geology, I’ll post a bit of the science-behind-Stargate. ETA: a few weeks.

In the meantime, the Monkey & I already got into quite a debate over the ethics presented in the first episode: a Vulcan “The good of the many before the good of the few” vs. the SG-1 “Never leave a man behind.”

I’ve finally figured out how to watch the premiere of Stargate: Universe despite my lack of both T.V. and cable. Sure, I’ll be a bit delayed and watching in lower-resolution, but I’ll still get to watch!

I haven’t made a Stargate post in a while. This is because I left my copy of SG:A “Brain Storm” in Canada so still haven’t been able to watch it (ARGH!), and because I had to pass off my equation-writing duties to another while I am down under (tiny heartbreak), so I really don’t have much to say.

On my flight from Melbourne to Adelaide, over a month ago now, two avid fans shared my row. I figured this out by their discussing Vancouver as a sacred city (home to The Studio and high density of filming locations), an upcoming Con, and a strong affection for one of the actors. Of course, the gate symbol tattooed on a wrist might have also been a clue… It made for an interesting, if surreal, flight.

The Aussie SciFi network (not yet SyFy) is advertising Stargate as part of the Star Trek family. I have no explanation for this, but find it downright strange. They are showing an interview clip with an extremely young Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) enthusing over how welcoming the fans were, that they saw him and the rest of NextGen as an extension of the Star Trek story, not a replacement to Captain Kirk and the rest of his rambunctious crew. I really hope the cast of Stargate: Universe will be able to say the same thing.

Creative consultant for SG:U, John Scalzi, posted about being a consultant. It captures the mix of bemusement and delight perfectly.

Stargate: Atlantis, “Brain Storm,” is the last episode of the series for which I was a physics consultant for Props. That means anywhere you see science-scribbles is my handwriting, not that I vetted the script for science.

I need to watch the aired episode to find out which whiteboards ended up in the final cut before I can start posting photos & explanations, but my favourite two boards are the one in the control room (a long complicated process going from string theory to atmospheric science over 24 feet) and the atmospheric science problem-solving board in the herd of physicists (where the lady and the albert-einsteinian scientists are drawing on a diagram).

update: teehee, at least one person noticed! Maxwell graces the Hero-board (they’re pretty! and leave a hint to look closer), but a physics textbook wouldn’t even touch on most of this stuff. When playing with scifi, a gal needs to go farther afield.

update2: have gotten my grubby little paws on the episode, but with only a few days before departure I haven’t gotten to watch it yet. I have confirmed that my whiteboards of glory are present. Discovery likes the squabbling-scientists, but I stand by my prior claim that physics has ego, yes, but it also has a strong ethos of mentorship.

Brain Storm airs soon. When it does, I’ll post my write-up of the science on the white boards.

Laura writes: “I’m gonna be utterly shameless now and ask a favour: I’m trying to help out my old physics teacher with some outreach and mentoring of students and I’m rapidly running out of ideas; could I link your blog on my site so the guys can see into a real scientists life? (they get bored of my student life, I’m sure)”

At the moment I’m just another evolution of the academic, but I’m always happy doing science outreach. If you think they’d enjoy it, link away! As for a Q&A with them, how about the oh-so-fuzzy answer of, “As time permits”?  If they post questions in comments, I’ll answer a few here & there when I get time; if you compile a list I’ll probably do the same thing I did with Joe (horde it as my not-work-project for a long time, then release a giant splurge of writing).

chevron7 writes: “I would have been interested to see Samantha Carter’s progression if she wasn’t employed in the military. Did it help or hinder her?”

(Thanks for the alt.-to-.ppt tip before; I think my computer has developed stage fright. & where in Oz?)

I think Carter ended up with pretty much an ideal career. In the military you don’t need to waste time writing grant proposals all the time, so the downside is applications (feeling like all your research gets corrupted into new ways of killing people) and classification (never getting to publish). I never noticed Carter having huge moral quandaries with what she was doing, she got to have practical applications to some pretty astrophysically-far-out theories, and there’s enough occasional references to her publishing (even a book!) that she doesn’t suffer McKay’s problem of it’s-all-too-classified-to-write. To me that sounds way better than the alternative-future they gave her in “Continuum.

astrumporta writes: “I wanted to say I didn’t realize you’re a woman from your name (I know a male Mikka!) and I don’t think Joe used a pronoun, otherwise you might have gotten more “women in science” questions. [...] And I think most fans would say you have the dream job of all geek dream jobs!”

Yeah, being in physics/science means that unless a name is clearly feminine, it’s often assumed male until proven otherwise. It’s understandable, especially with my name looking like a typo for Mike (and I’ve also known a male Miikka, one of the grad students in the cosmology lab I worked in). I also get a lot of people guessing the gender right but thinking I’m Japanese in other blind Q&A sessions I’ve done for other outreach projects. It’s too early to have a solid hypothesis, but I’m wondering if it’s because we’re so accustomed to seeing “normal” gender balances in scifi that it’s easy to project that into real life and not consider women-in-science a strange enough occupation to ask about it.

Yup, totally my dream job. I really hope I get to come back for more!

Mika & Director Martin Wood: hanging out in McKay’s apartment in “The Last Man”.

I’m glad you had fun with the Q&A, and are investigating some of the links! It’s a rare sunny day in Vancouver so I’m heading out to enjoy it, but when it gets dark I’ll be back to see how many of the follow-up questions in the comments I can tackle.