A Mosaic of Cassiopeia

Posted on by
A Mosaic of Cassiopeia
This mosaic of images from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explore, or WISE, in the constellation of Cassiopeia contains a large star-forming nebula within the Milky Way Galaxy, called IC 1805 or the Heart Nebula, a portion of which is seen at the right of the image. IC 1805 is more than 6,000 light-years from Earth. Also visible in this image are two nearby galaxies, Maffei 1 and Maffei 2. In visible light these galaxies are hidden by dust in IC 1805 and were unknown until 1968 when Paolo Maffei found them using infrared observations. Both galaxies contain billions of stars and are located some 10 million light-years away. Maffei 1 is a lenticular galaxy, which has a disk-like structure and a central bulge but no spiral structure or appreciable dust content. Maffei 2 is a spiral galaxy that also has a disk shape, but with a bar-like central bulge and two prominent dusty spiral arms.

View my blog's last three great articles....

View this site auto transport car shipping car transport

NASA Launches Interactive Simulation of Satellite Communications

Posted on by
NASA today unveiled an interactive computer simulation that allows virtual explorers of all ages to dock the space shuttle at the International Space Station, experience a virtual trip to Mars or a lunar impact, and explore images of star formations taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

In an effort to excite young people about space and NASA's missions, the agency has launched the online Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) simulation, designed to entertain and educate. The interactive simulation offers a virtual 3-D experience to visualize how data travels along various space communications paths.

"The elaborate space communications networks that connect scientists and engineers with NASA's spacecraft is essential to all of NASA's missions and can be a challenging concept to comprehend," said Barbara Adde, a policy and strategic communications manager for the Office of Space Communications and Navigation at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This simulation helps explain this complex infrastructure in an engaging way by using an interactive 3-D game."

The interactive Space Communication and Navigation simulation allows visitors to select spacecraft and experience a "flythrough," or a tutorial with images and descriptions of NASA's three space communication networks. For example, the Near Earth Network flythrough shows how data originates at an antenna at McMurdo Station, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The data is then sent to NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite, or ICESat, as it passes overhead.

The Space Network flythrough also shows how data is relayed from NASA's White Sands Test Facility, N.M., to the space station via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, a network of communication satellites and ground stations NASA uses for space communications.

Finally, in the Deep Space Network demonstration, visitors learn how NASA communicates with the Mars Exploration Rovers, Sprit and Opportunity, by using the Madrid Deep Space Network antenna to send data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which then relays the data to the rover.

"Making this interactive simulation available to young people is important and may lead them to consider a career in engineering, science or information technology as it relates to space," said Chris C. Kemp, chief information officer at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. "NASA is embracing the fact that programs like this help convey NASA's message to people who respond well to virtual and online learning environments."

The space communication network simulation features nine spacecraft to choose from, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the space station, the space shuttle orbiter, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Cassini, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), ICESat and Aura. Once a spacecraft is contacted, visitors can request actions such as "choose an imaging target" and "take pictures" of the Crab Nebula as seen from Hubble, or view videos of the space shuttle docking at the station.

In addition to the Space Communication and Navigation simulation, NASA provides interactive applications and other online educational tools on its Web site.

To explore the Space Communication and Navigation network simulation, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/spacecomm.html

For more information about the Space Communications and Navigation network, visit:

http://www.spacecomm.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA's educational resources, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

View my blog's last three great articles....

View this site auto transport car shipping car transport

Drinkers Gain Less Weight – Harvard Crimson

Posted on by

Reuters
Drinkers Gain Less Weight
Harvard Crimson
... these findings can be “counterintuitive,” said Lu Wang, the lead author and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. ...
Moderate Drinking 'Can Keep Women Slim'The Chosun Ilbo
Alcohol & Weight Gain In WomenNewsChannel 9 WSYR
Female Moderate Drinkers Gain Less Weight Over the YearsTestCountry.com (blog)
Boston Globe (blog)
all 396 news articles »

NASA Extends Johnson Safety and Mission Assurance Contract

Posted on by
NASA has exercised a $60 million, one-year extension option for a contract with Science Applications International Corporation of Houston to provide support to safety and mission assurance activities at the agency's Johnson Space Center.

The Safety and Mission Assurance Support Services contract helps ensure safety, reliability, maintainability and quality in the International Space Station, space shuttle and Constellation programs.

The cost-plus-award-fee contract option that has been exercised continues services from May 1, 2010, through April 30, 2011. Work under the contract will be performed at Johnson, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.

Significant subcontractors in the work include Futron Corp. of Bethesda, Md.; GHG of Houston; M.H. Chew of Livermore, Calif.; URS - Washington Division of Princeton, N.J.; Management Technology Associates of Huntsville, Ala.; J&P Technologies and JES Tech, both of Houston; SoHaR Incorporated of Culver City, Calif.; and Texas Southern University of Houston.

For more information about NASA's Johnson Space Center, visit:

View my blog's last three great articles....

View this site auto transport car shipping car transport

Suspect in North Dallas shootings became reclusive after parents died, family says – Dallas Morning News

Posted on by

Dallas Morning News
Suspect in North Dallas shootings became reclusive after parents died, family says
Dallas Morning News
Police say Mustard shot a father and son, Richard and Christopher Smith, about 10:30 am Monday inside the Smiths' financial services offices near Medical ...
Police search for motive in North Dallas office shootingsDallas Morning News

all 488 news articles »

Rotary Hingeline Actuators and Velocity Summing

Posted on by

A rotary hingeline actuator which implements dual-redundant drive channels using a velocity-summing planetary differential and planetary gear stages to the rotary output. The rotary actuator gear ratio matches the torque and speed requirements of the control surface to the motor output. High-st

Human Influence on Climate More Clear

Posted on by

SCIENCE: Man’s climate fingerprints clear — U.K. Met Office (03/05/2010)

The possibility that human activity is not the prime cause of climate change is becoming “increasingly remote,” according to a major review of climate science released by Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office.

The study used computer models of different possible climate change drivers — including solar output, volcanic eruptions, El Niño and the release of greenhouse gases — matched against tangible climate changes over the past decades to air and sea temperature and Arctic sea ice. This technique, called “optimal detection,” showed clear fingerprints of man-caused warming, said Peter Stott, who led the project.

“This wealth of evidence shows that there is an increasingly remote possibility that climate change is being dominated by natural factors rather than human factors,” he said.

According to NASA, average atmospheric temperatures have risen by 0.8 degrees centigrade since 1880. But much of the recent warming trends have been found instead in the world’s oceans, Stott said.

“Over 80 percent of the heat that’s trapped in the climate system as a result of the greenhouse gases is exported into the ocean, and we can see that happening,” Stott said.

One possibility frequently cited by critics of global warming is that warming could be driven by increased activity from the sun. However, if that was the case, the Earth’s atmosphere would have warmed more evenly and temperatures would have increased early in the 20th century, rather than later.

“There hasn’t been an increase in solar output for the last 50 years,” Stott said. “And solar output would not have caused cooling of the higher atmosphere and the warming of the lower atmosphere that we have seen.”

The review was published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (Alok Jha, London Guardian, March 5). – PV

Slip RPM of Submersible Pump Set Rotor

Posted on by

Is it possible to monitor the slip rpm of a single phase submersible pump set rotor by measuring the current flowing in the stator winding and using suitable electronics to extract the required data ? If not, then what is the standard method of doing so. Your erudite replies will be highly appreciat

Electrical Test Meters and Components

Posted on by

Dear, Sir

Please refer to our inquiry as we need the items below. If you have them, kindly send us a picture of the items and please quote us your best price.

NO

QTY

UOM

DESCRIPTION

MFG

MFG/PART NO

1

5

PC

POTENTIOMETER, 2W 10KOMGA

MRO WXD3-

Longer Transcript of Michael Mann/Point of Inquiry Interview Up at Climate Science Watch | The Intersection

Posted on by

Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch has taken the time to transcribe what may be the most important and revealing part of my Michael Mann Point of Inquiry interview–the end. It’s the part where, among other things, Mann refers to the “asymmetric warfare” between trained skeptics and scientists as “literally like a battle between a Marine and a Cub Scout.” And there is much more there. For those who enjoy reading rather than listening, check it out.


More Shuttle Flights? Just Send Money

Posted on by

Space shuttle can fly beyond 2010, if money is there: NASA, AFP

"The US space shuttle fleet can continue flying beyond NASA's September 30 deadline if the money is made available to keep it going, a US space agency official told reporters Tuesday. "I think the real issue that the agency and the nation has to address is the expense," said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon, noting the shuttle fleet costs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 200 million dollars per month to maintain it in working condition. "Where that money comes from is the big question," he added."

Obama's New Mission for NASA Sets Off Intense Criticism, Fox

"It's amazing that we're headed down a path where we're not going to have any vehicles at all to launch from the Kennedy Space Center for an extended period of time," John Shannon, NASA's space shuttle manager said at a news conference. "And to give up all the lessons learned, the blood, sweat and tears that we have expended to get the space shuttle to the point where it is right now where it is performing so magnificently," he said."

A Taste of Dunedin

Posted on by

Florida Tourism “Eli’s BBQ” from AboutFace Media on Vimeo.
Not long ago my wife and I took a bike ride from Honeymoon Island along the Pinellas Trail to Dunedin. Along the way we passed by a little BBQ stand that looked and smelled really good. Unfortunately we had already eaten lunch downtown, but we made a [...]