Popular Science Lecture by Capt Jon A Mc Bride
Popular Science Lecture on Exciting Journey in Space Science by Capt Jon A Mc Bride (Former NASA Astronaut)From:Ravi SaxenaViews:0 0ratingsTime:07:41More inScience Technology
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A Multi-Wavelength View of Radio Galaxy Hercules-A
Spectacular jets powered by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole in the core of the elliptical galaxy Hercules A illustrate the combined imaging power of two of astronomy #39;s cutting-edge tools, the Hubble Space Telescope #39;s Wide Field Camera 3, and the recently upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico. Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O #39;Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)From:SpaceReportsViews:0 0ratingsTime:00:42More inScience Technology
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MESSENGER Laser Altimeter
MESSENGER Laser Altimeter MESSENGER #39;s Mercury Laser Altimeter sends out laser pulses that hit the ground and return to the instrument. The amount of light that returns for each pulse gives the reflectance at that point on the surface. The amount of time it takes the pulse to make its trip indicates how far away that point on the surface is, allowing the topography to be mapped. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterFrom:SpaceReportsViews:0 0ratingsTime:00:11More inScience Technology
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Moonwalking On Mountains
9/18/12: That breakbeat, those now famous ad-libs, I don #39;t even think the band Mountain themselves would have guess that their 1969 live rendition of "Long Red" at Woodstock would become a staple in a totally different genre of music. It #39;s up there with James Brown #39;s "Funky Drummer," Skull Snaps #39; "It #39;s A New Day," and Melvin Bliss #39; "Synthetic Substitution," as the most used break in Hip-Hop. Everybody... and I mean EVERYBODY has used it at some point. Pete Rock, DJ Premier J. Dilla, Kanye West, Madlib, 9th Wonder, Large Professor... list goes on and on. Of course what can be said already that hasn #39;t been said about Track 7 on Thriller. Human Nature is hands down one of my favorite records from the King of Pop. I don #39;t know what is about those opening synths, but it gives me this feeling of flying, absolute elevation, like Jordan from the free throw line or NASA from the launch pad. Then, of course during the mid 90s, the song was re-introduced to another generation thanks to SWV ("Right Here") and Nasty Nas ("It Ain #39;t Hard To Tell"). When these two are put together (See "It Ain #39;t Hard To Tell" as mentioned above) it #39;s a perfect marriage like Peanut Butter Jelly, Burgers French Fries, Chicken Waffles... well you get the point. And once again, as I was getting use to use Maschine, I decided to re-flip these two classics. Then, in the middle of a session about a month ago, I played the beat for the rest of the fellas, 3 hours later, you have what you are hearing now ...From:HonorFlowProductionsViews:3 0ratingsTime:04:20More inMusic
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2012/10/19 04:00-24 hours AIA 304 24 fps
October 19, 2012, AIA 304. Six hour observation, 12 second cadence (1800 frames @ 30 fps). Thanks to the NASA/SDO team and VSO for the data. Processed by Larry Manley, Butte, Montana.From:Larry ManleyViews:0 0ratingsTime:05:00More inScience Technology
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Despite searing daytime temperatures, Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, has ice and frozen organic materials inside permanently shadowed craters in its north pole, NASA scientists said on Thursday.
Earth-based telescopes have been compiling evidence for ice on Mercury for 20 years, but the finding of organics was a surprise, say researchers with NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, the first probe to orbit Mercury.
Both ice and organic materials, which are similar to tar or coal, were believed to have been delivered millions of years ago by comets and asteroids crashing into the planet.
"It's not something we expected to see, but then of course you realize it kind of makes sense because we see this in other places," such as icy bodies in the outer solar system and in the nuclei of comets, planetary scientist David Paige, with the University of California, Los Angeles, told Reuters.
Unlike NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which will be sampling rocks and soils to look for organic materials directly, the MESSENGER probe bounces laser beams, counts particles, measures gamma rays and collects other data remotely from orbit.
The discoveries of ice and organics, painstakingly pieced together for more than a year, are based on computer models, laboratory experiments and deduction, not direct analysis.
"The explanation that seems to fit all the data is that it's organic material," said lead MESSENGER scientist Sean Solomon, with Columbia University in New York.
Added Paige, "It's not just a crazy hypothesis. No one has got anything else that seems to fit all the observations better."
Scientists believe the organic material, which is about twice as dark as most of Mercury's surface, was mixed in with comet- or asteroid-delivered ice eons ago.
The ice vaporized, then re-solidified where it was colder, leaving dark deposits on the surface. Radar imagery shows the dark patches subside at the coldest parts of the crater, where ice can exist on the surface.
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DECATUR, Ala., Nov. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden today discussed the state of the nation's space agency, including science and human exploration, during his visit to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) production facility in Decatur, Ala., where ULA manufactures both Atlas and Delta launch vehicles.
Joined by ULA President and CEO Michael Gass, Bolden viewed hardware being prepared for future NASA missions and hosted a town hall meeting with ULA's Alabama employees where he thanked them for their efforts in building the highly reliable Atlas and Delta rockets. ULA launches critical space capabilities for the Department of Defense, NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and other commercial customers.
Bolden submitted this blog post about his visit to ULA. Read the Administrator's blog post here: http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/bolden/posts/post_1354126709864.html.
Last year was a busy year for the NASA science community, and ULA was a critical team player enabling the agency to meet an aggressive launch campaign, including the Aquarius, Juno, Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) and NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) missions. The year was capped with the launch of the tremendously successful Mars Science Laboratory.
The Atlas and Delta heritage launch vehicles have supported NASA's presence in space for more than 50 years, including the manned Mercury flights and America's early interplanetary missions. ULA's partnership with NASA continues to bear fruit, including the launch of the twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) earlier this year. RBSP was the 17th NASA mission launched on a ULA rocket. ULA will launch NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS)-K satellite relay system,Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) imagery satellite, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) missions in 2013.
"The capabilities NASA builds are precision scientific instruments that would take several years to re-create if a launch failed. ULA has successfully delivered each and every time," ULA's Gass said.
ULA supports the space launch needs for many of NASA's top priorities, including flight test of the Orion spacecraft, development of the upper stage for the Space Launch System (SLS), launch services support of two Commercial Crew Program teams (Boeing and Sierra Nevada) and launch of several science exploration missions. Bolden today was able to see rocket hardware for three upcoming NASA science missions, including TDRS-L, MAVEN and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 carbon-counting science mission.
Bolden also viewed the beginnings of the Exploration Flight Test (EFT) rocket, which will serve as the test launch vehicle for the Orion crew capsule. The EFT launch will provide an opportunity to gain real flight experience with the Orion spacecraft.
"We know the future is promising for the NASA and ULA partnership with many important missions on the horizon, including our Commercial Crew Program," said Gass. "ULA's support of NASA's human exploration efforts will ensure that the United States has safe, reliable means of delivering crew to the space station."
ULA's support of SLS also is promising. Working with The Boeing Company, ULA is providing the second stage for SLS, which is targeting 2017 to send humans beyond Earth orbit for the first time since 1972.
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NASA wants us all to know that it feels very confident in predicting that the world won't end in 2012, despite what we may have read on the Internet.
The space agency recently saw fit to take its debunking hammer to persistent online tales of a fictional dwarf planet that is supposedly on a collision course with Earth, popular prophecies associated with the Mayan calendar, and other doomsday scenarios that fall apart under minimal scrutiny.
"Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, Dec. 21, 2012 won't be the end of the world as we know it. However, it will be another winter solstice," NASA associates behind a new website called Beyond 2012 wrote Wednesday in a Google+ post.
Some of the more popular apocalyptic theories revolve around a rogue planet called Nibiru supposedly discovered thousands of years ago by the ancient Sumerians, which some believe is going to collide with our planet next month. Variations on this theme call the doomsday rock Planet X or peg the real dwarf planet Eris as the harbinger of death from the skies, while a recent strain of this myth tries to tie the whole thing in with the supposed end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012.
Beyond 2012 is dedicated to debunking such pseudo-science. There is no Nibiru or Planet X that's been observed by astronomers and if they really were on a path to hit the Earth in a couple weeks, they'd be visible to the naked eye by now. Eris "is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles," the site explains.
The supposedly abrupt end of the Mayan calendar at the upcoming winter solstice? It's not "evidence" that ancient Mesoamerican chronometrists had some mystic knowledge of when the world would endit's actually just the end of one of the cycles they used in devising their calendar.
Other doomsday hokum countered on the Beyond 2012 site includes a supposedly imminent reversal in the Earth's rotation, the onset of giant solar storms, and a fanciful array of disastrous events somehow set in motion by a rare alignment of the planets.
As NASA notes, concern in some quarters over such far-fetched scenarios has been helped along by a spate of recent books and movies depicting the end of the world.
The Beyond 2012 social page also links to video of a recent Google+ hangout (see it below) in which a panel of scientists takes on specific 2012 doomsday claims and explains why they're so much bunk.
Panelists included: Mitzi Adams, a solar/archaeoastronomer from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center; Andrew Fraknoi, a science educator from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif.; Lika Guhathakurta, a heliophysicist from NASA Headquarters; Paul Hertz, an astrophysicist from NASA Headquarters; David Morrison, an astrobiologist from NASA's Ames Research Center; and Don Yeomans, an asteroid scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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New evidence suggests Mercury's north polar region contains large deposits of ice. (NASA/Johns Hopkins UniversNASA's Messenger spacecraft has discovered evidence that the planet Mercury has enough ice on its surface to encase Washington, D.C., in a block two and a half miles deep.
"For more than 20 years the jury has been deliberating on whether the planet closest to the Sun hosts abundant water ice in its permanently shadowed polar regions," writes Sean Solomon of the Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the principal investigator of the Messenger mission. The spacecraft "has now supplied a unanimous affirmative verdict."
"These reflectance anomalies are concentrated on poleward-facing slopes and are spatially collocated with areas of high radar backscatter postulated to be the result of near-surface water ice," Gregory Neumann of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center writes in the paper. "Correlation of observed reflectance with modeled temperatures indicates that the optically bright regions are consistent with surface water ice."
The study results were published on Wednesday in Science magazine, which explains in its summary, "The buried layer must be nearly pure water ice. The upper layer contains less than 25 wt.% water-equivalent hydrogen. The total mass of water at Mercury's poles is inferred to be 2 1016 to 1018 g and is consistent with delivery by comets or volatile-rich asteroids."
Radar imaging of Mercury has long suggested that there could be large deposits on the planet's surface, with reports dating to 1991. But today's report presents harder evidence supporting that theory.
Messenger has fired more than 10 million laser imaging pulses at Mercury's surface since arriving in its orbit in 2011. Feedback from those pulses have helped NASA in its quest to verify whether ice is present in Mercury's poles, which are largely shielded from exposure to the sun's rays.
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NASA: There’s enough ice on Mercury to encase Washington, D.C.
NASA has announced today that its Messenger spacecraft has confirmed that there is ice on the surface of Mercury.
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NASA is asking scientists for ideas about how best to use two huge space telescopes it received from the United States' spy satellite agency earlier this year.
On Monday (Nov. 26), NASA officially invited researchers to propose uses for the telescopes, which are comparable to the agency's famous Hubble Space Telescope in size and appearance. The best ideas will be presented at a workshop this coming February in Huntsville, Ala., officials said.
"Because there are two telescopes, there is room for projects that span the gamut of the imagination," Michael Moore, a senior program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "They range from simple balloon flights to complex missions in science using new technologies under development and the capabilities available with the International Space Station and our commercial spaceflight partners."
The former spy satellite telescopes were originallybuilt to carry out surveillance missions for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), under a multibillion-dollar program called Future Imagery Architecture. But cost overruns and delays killed the program in 2005, and NASA announced this past June that the NRO had bequeathed the instruments to the space agency.
While the telescopes' apertures are equivalent to that of Hubble, they are designed to have a much wider field of view, NASA officials said.
NASA is already considering using the telescopes as a base for the proposed Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which would hunt for the mysterious dark energy that appears to be driving the universe's accelerating expansion. WFIRST was identified as a top priority in the National Research Council's 2010 Astrophysics Decadal Survey, which delineated the main science goals the country should pursue for the next 10 years.
However, NASA is not locked into this application for the former NRO telescopes, as its call for new ideas shows.
"We will give all ideas equal consideration and choose the most promising for further study," said Marc Allen, acting deputy associate administrator for research in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "We want to tap into innovative ideas wherever we can find them in order to optimize use of these telescope assets."
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter@Spacedotcom. We're also onFacebook&Google+.
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Today NASA released an official statement confirming that the first soil samples gathered with Curiosity's new instrument do not contain a rumored "earth-shaking" discovery.
[More from Mashable: 10 Brilliant Photos of the Moon and Jupiter]
The world was abuzz last week after Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger's interview with NPR led to reports that the rover's latest soil samples contained a groundbreaking discovery. But as Mashable first reported earlier this week, those reports were just rumors.
"Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect," NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory stated via press release. The agency said it will go into more detail in a press conference on Dec. 3 at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
[More from Mashable: Space Weather Forecast System Could Cost $2 Billion]
The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover's full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil. One class of substances Curiosity is checking for is organic compounds -- carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life. At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics.
Grotzinger's original quote during the NPR interview about Curiosity's data being "one for the history books" was taken out of context. What he was actually referring to was the rover's mission as a whole will further our knowledge of Mars, making it a historical endeavor.
While today's data release doesn't contain a major discovery, that doesn't mean there isn't one in the rover's future. Curiosity is only a few months into her two-year mission on Mars.
"Curiositys mission is producing a unprecedented volume of valuable science data," Grotzinger told Mashable on Tuesday via email. "Much of this will help us better glimpse the very ancient environments of Mars, that are regarded to have been the most habitable in the planets history. We have only just started on this journey back in time."
The rover takes it first cruise on the Martial surface.
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NASA Confirms: No Major Discovery in Curiosity's Mars Soil Sample
NASA scientists took time on Wednesday (Nov. 28) to soothe 2012 doomsday fears, warning against the dark side of Mayan apocalypse rumors frightened children and suicidal teens who truly fear the world may come to an end Dec. 21.
These fears are based on misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar. On the 21st, the date of the winter solstice, a calendar cycle called the 13th b'ak'tun comes to an end. Although Maya scholars agree that the ancient Maya would not have seen this day as apocalyptic, rumors have spread that a cosmic event may end life on Earth on that day.
Thus NASA's involvement. The space agency maintains a 2012 information page debunking popular Mayan apocalypse rumors, such as the idea that a rogue planet will hit Earth on Dec. 21, killing everyone. (In fact, astronomers are quite good at detecting near-Earth objects, and any wandering planet scheduled to collide with Earth in three weeks would be the brightest object in the sky behind the sun and moon by now.)
"There is no true issue here," David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, said during a NASA Google+ Hangout event today (Nov. 28). "This is just a manufactured fantasy." [End of the World? Top Doomsday Fears]
Real-world consequences
Unfortunately, Morrison said, the fantasy has real-life consequences. As one of NASA's prominent speakers on 2012 doomsday myths, Morrison said, he receives many emails and letters from worried citizens, particularly young people. Some say they can't eat, or are too worried to sleep, Morrison said. Others say they're suicidal.
"While this is a joke to some people and a mystery to others, there is a core of people who are truly concerned," he said.
Not every 2012 apocalypse believer thinks the world will end on Dec. 21. Some, inspired by New Age philosophies, expect a day of universal peace and spiritual transformation. But it's impressionable kids who have NASA officials worried.
"I think it's evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children," Morrison said.
Myths and misconceptions
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NASA has unveiled astonishingly detailed radar views of a mile-wide asteroid that zipped safely by Earth this month its closest approach to our planet until the year 2488.
Astronomers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used the agency's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., to record nine new images of asteroid 2007 PA8 between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13 as it made its nearest pass by our planet in more than a century.
The images reveal that 2007 PA8 as an elongated, asymmetrically-shaped space rock, with possible ridges, craters and even boulders on its surface, according to JPL officials. The pictures also show that the asteroid rotates very slowly, about once every three to four days.
The moment of the space rock's closest approach occurred on Nov. 5 at 11:42 a.m. EST (1642 GMT), when it zipped by at a range of 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers), or 17 times the distance between our planet and the moon. On that day and on Nov. 6, astronomers captured images of the asteroid with resolutions as detailed as 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel.
They achieved a resolution of 25 feet (7.5 m) per pixel on Nov. 2, 3 and 8, and 62 feet (18.75 m) per pixel on Oct. 31 and Nov. 11 to 13, JPL officials wrote in a statement. The new radar photos follow earlier images of asteroid 2007 PA8 from a NASA observation campaign between Oct. 28 and 30.
The recent flyby marked asteroid 2007 PA8's closest since 1880 and astronomers say it won't make a closer pass for another 476 years. In the year 2488, the asteroid is expected to approach Earth at about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers) away.
This asteroid is classed as a near-Earth object. Scientists with NASA and other agencies regularly track and study such space rocks to determine whether anypose an impact threatto our planet.
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter@Spacedotcom. We're also onFacebookandGoogle+.
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NASA's Messenger probe enabled researchers to find unexpected materials frozen in Mercury's north pole. Scientists think the materials arrived via comets or asteroids that hit millions of years ago.
Despite searing daytime temperatures, Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, has ice and frozen organic materials inside permanently shadowed craters in its north pole,NASA scientists said on Thursday.
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Earth-based telescopes have been compiling evidence for ice on Mercury for 20 years, but the finding of organics was a surprise, say researchers withNASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, the first probe to orbit Mercury.
Both ice and organic materials, which are similar to tar or coal, were believed to have been delivered millions of years ago by comets and asteroids crashing into the planet.
"It's not something we expected to see, but then of course you realize it kind of makes sense because we see this in other places," such as icy bodies in the outer solar system and in the nuclei of comets, planetary scientist David Paige, with theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, told Reuters.
UnlikeNASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which will be sampling rocks and soils to look for organic materials directly, the MESSENGER probe bounceslaserbeams, counts particles, measures gamma rays and collects other data remotely from orbit.
The discoveries of ice and organics, painstakingly pieced together for more than a year, are based on computer models, laboratory experiments and deduction, not direct analysis.
"The explanation that seems to fit all the data is that it's organic material," said lead MESSENGER scientistSean Solomon, withColumbia University in New York.
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Ultra Ever Dry Coating Will Completely Repel Almost Any Liquid
Ultra-Ever Dry is a superhydrophobic (water) and oleophobic (hydrocarbons) coating that will completely repel almost any liquid. Ultra-Ever Dry uses proprietary nanotechnology to coat an object and create a barrier of air on its surface. This barrier repels water, oil and other liquids unlike any coating seen before. The other breakthrough associated with Ultra-Ever Dry is the superior coating adherence and abrasion resistance allowing it to be used in all kinds of applications where durability is required. Ideal for use on metals, plastics, wood and fabric. Quart can covers 42 square feet.From:gectvViews:22 1ratingsTime:04:16More inScience Technology
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Ultra Ever Dry Coating Will Completely Repel Almost Any Liquid - Video
Designing a New Future
Discover how Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is contributing to the future of Israel and the world through innovations in nanotechnology; desert research; biotechnology; homeland security; and more.From:aabguViews:8 0ratingsTime:06:48More inEducation
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Steam Power WITHOUT Boiling? (Brainstorm Ep118)
Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com Nanotechnology News tinyurl.com Neuroscience News tinyurl.com Genetics News tinyurl.com Hosted by http://www.youtube.com Contributors http://www.facebook.com - Raychelle and Monica http://www.facebook.comFrom:qdragon1337Views:665 113ratingsTime:05:30More inScience Technology
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Clarion University #39;s Gregory Barnes Center for Biotechnology- CARIPD
At the Gregory Barnes Center for Biotechnology at Clarion University, the Center for Applied Research Intellectual Property Development focuses on academic-industry collaborations for applied research projects in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and nanomaterials with the help of Clarion University #39;s student interns.From:ClarionUniversity1Views:5 0ratingsTime:02:33More inEducation
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Clarion University's Gregory Barnes Center for Biotechnology- CARIPD - Video
Power Harvesting and Ambient Energy: Manos Tentzeris at TEDxEmory 2012
Professor Manos M. Tentzeris received the Diploma Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens "Magna Cum Laude" in Greece, and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He currently serves as a professor with the School of ECE at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Tentzeris has published more than 420 papers in refereed Journals and Conference Proceedings, 5 books, and 19 book chapters. Professor Tentzeris explains his research in nanotechnology and the future of power harvesting. AboutTEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)From:TEDxTalksViews:1 0ratingsTime:20:37More inEducation
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Power Harvesting and Ambient Energy: Manos Tentzeris at TEDxEmory 2012 - Video