Radon Gas

I was interested that radon gas had been detected in a building on the Chastleton estate. A quick check of the UK radon map shows that this is a radon area. This site explains that limestone can also be a problem geology. This explains why it is the daughter decay products that are the lung cancer danger. 

Does sea ice contain salt?

At Port Carlisle, there is ice banked up on the beach. This will be from the sea freezing in the shallows at high tide in the night. It has a very funny texture and freezes in odd shapes. Some of the sections are reminiscent of the bigger, harder mini-ice-bergs that washed up in 2010. We wondered if the freezing process removed the salt. One small piece sampled had no salt taste. This article explains our observations quite well. It is probable that we had the start of pancake ice. It also explains the mushy texture. I have seen articles that say sea ice is salty but in less than 4 years it becomes pure H2O. The Met Office article would suggest that the salt gets concentrated into tiny sections. How the salt is then removed over time is not clear to me yet.

House on the Bridge

This set up was needed to create a platform to repair the House on the Bridge in Ambleside. It is a hinged platform so we can apply moments. I estimate that it is 6m long. 8 x 20kg masses on the pavement. Two attachment points on the platform make the analysis more complicated and perhaps unsolvable so I'm going to assume that all of the load goes through the oblique cable at about 30 degrees to the platform. Worker at 3m from hinge, cable at 5m from hinge. Then moments 

5W=3 x 160gcos60

W = 1300N

So it will support a worker but not much more because the weight of the platform is included.

The Albedo of Snow

This week the snow on the fells has been so beautiful against the clear blue sky. The snowy peaks seem to shine. This is because snow reflects most of the light that shines on it. I have read that this is because the snowflakes are tiny flat planes. They are all oriented in different directions so that the reflection is diffuse. Swiss avalanche researchers give the albedo as up to 95%.

APOD jigsaw

 We were intrigued by a link on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for 6th January 2025. It takes you to a page that offers an online jigsaw of the image. We managed the one with the biggest pieces. Thanks to Mrs B for spotting this one.

The potato radius

This came up in the last Brian Cox series on the BBC, Solar System. Asteroids are large lumps of rock in all shapes but often looking rather like a potato, with one axis larger than the other. When rocky objects get to a certain size, they have so much mass that gravitational forces can pull inwards enough to make the rocky object spherical. Then we can call it a Dwarf Planet. The Potato Radius is the smallest radius of such a dwarf planet. It is somewhere between 200 and 300km.

Storage Batteries for Solar

 

Having worked out in a post the other day that I could perhaps generate 5000kWh of solar a year, could I use that? My total energy consumption for a year is bang on average at 11500kWh so it would be nearly half my annual consumption. Batteries are now being touted as a way to smooth out the electrical use. On a summer day I might generate 20kWh but I only use 5kWh. The smallest battery at 5kWh would be no use because I'd be needing to store more than that every day. Even 150kWh battery would be storing 10 days of surplus. I don't think this advert is aimed at me.