Dragonfly Guest Investigator Program Provides Bridge to Opportunities
From left, Dragonfly guest investigators Brianna Wiley, Will Suero Amparo, Andrea Bryant, Dragonfly Principal Investigator Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, and guest investigators Anna Engle and Karla Negrete.
Credit: Johns Hopkins APL
Thu, 03/17/2022 - 12:04
Karla Negrete always wondered how she could apply her mechanical engineering skills in the space field, so when she stumbled upon the Dragonfly Student and Early Career Guest Investigator Program on LinkedIn two years ago, she jumped at the chance to pursue the discipline in a formal program.
Little did she know that just months later, her work would be publicly available and utilized by science team members on Dragonfly, a NASA rotorcraft-lander expedition to Saturn’s large, exotic moon Titan.
Negrete is one of many students getting a firsthand, formal introduction to planetary science through the program. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and is now in a doctoral program at Drexel University.
“My project experience has given me a toolbox of skills I would not have acquired elsewhere,” Negrete said. “From my understanding of physical chemistry to polishing my programming skills to even inspiring parts of the research in my doctoral degree, being part of a mission like this so early in my career has shaped the trajectory of my career interests. I’ve gained niche interest in relating graduate research to space exploration.”
Artist’s impression of the Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander, moving between investigation sites on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
The Dragonfly guest investigator program, of which Negrete was part, is the brainchild of Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, the mission’s principal investigator and a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. She wanted the mission to include opportunities for early career scientists and engineers to gain experience during the early phases of the mission, as well as the science operations phase at Titan. Turtle worked with Lynnae Quick, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who leads the guest investigator program, and other Dragonfly team members to develop the program as part of the mission proposal they submitted to NASA.
The program pairs students with Dragonfly scientists and engineers throughout the course of the mission. Students work on projects under the mentorship of Dragonfly team members with an aim to expand mission involvement, increase science return and provide experience to the next generation of scientists and engineers.
“By reaching out to students who don’t already have connections to spacecraft missions or who do not have a planetary science background, the program is intended to serve as a bridge for those students, providing networking and training opportunities for the next generation of mission team members and leaders,” Turtle said.
Each student project runs for two years, and to date, two cohorts are working on Dragonfly. Negrete and two other students began in 2020 and will participate through 2022, and two more started in November 2021 and will participate through 2023. The call for applications for the third cohort opened in January 2022, with applications due in May 2022.
Negrete’s project, “Composition Library for Interpretation of DragonCam Data of Titan Surface Samples,” is intended to support the interpretation of color images that will be relayed back from DragonCam, Dragonfly’s camera suite, by compiling a library of VIS-IR spectra, including spectra of both individual and mixed compounds anticipated on Titan’s surface.
Her next step is to simulate color imaging recorded by DragonCam using the VIS-IR spectra of compounds and mixtures generated. This data will be useful in constraining the range of anticipated “colors” on Titan as seen by DragonCam.
Shannon MacKenzie, an APL planetary scientist and Negrete’s mentor in the program, said it’s humbling to have the chance to provide support to the next generation of graduate students.
“The guest investigator program is bringing students who wouldn’t normally consider space-related applications of their STEM fields into contact with all the work required to make a mission like Dragonfly a reality,” said MacKenzie, who also serves on the mission science team. “We’re reaching out to students whose institutions may not have existing connections to planetary science or NASA missions, including historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.”
“The program is a real testament to Zibi’s dedication to building a strong team that serves not only the mission and each other but also the science and technical community at large,” MacKenzie added.
Quick, the lead for the Dragonfly guest investigator program, said it’s designed to reach “high-achieving graduate students and give them experience in planetary mission work.”
“We hope that it will inform their knowledge of potential career paths in planetary science,” Quick said. “This program brings in a group of STEM students each year to participate in Dragonfly mission development activities, and it positively impacts the diversity of science that we’re able to do on the mission while broadening representation among mission team membership.”
The response from mentors has also been overwhelmingly positive and attracted scientists and engineers alike.
“These students are on the ball; they are excellent academically and in their research,” Quick said. “Broadening participation means finding talented, smart and qualified students. We are looking for that team of future leaders who can contribute to Dragonfly and other robotic missions.”
Current Dragonfly mentors include MacKenzie, Richard Miller, Jorge Núñez and Patrick Peplowski from APL; Mark Panning from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Ann Parsons and Melissa Trainer from NASA Goddard.
The program’s first cohort of graduate student guest investigators are Negrete; Andrea Bryant, who’s studying physics at the University of Chicago; and Brianna Wylie, who’s studying mechanical engineering at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University. The second cohort is AnnaEngle, astronomy and planetary science student at Northern Arizona University, and Will Suero Amparo, biomedical engineering student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Their projects include seismic investigation of Titan’s interior, developing a compositional library for interpretation of Dragonfly surface observations, development of the LEDs for illumination of the DragonCam microscopic imager, interpretation of surface compositional measurements with the Dragonfly Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (DraGNS), and planning for surface operations of the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS).
Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2027 and reach Titan by the mid-2030s. Follow the Dragonfly team at http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu as it develops this game-changing mission.
The Applied Physics Laboratory, a not-for-profit division of The Johns Hopkins University, meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of science and technology. For more information, visit www.jhuapl.edu.


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The mission of the unit officially recognized as completed after thousands of unsuccessful attempts to establish communication with him.
NASA on Wednesday, February 13, officially announced the termination of the mission, the Opportunity Rover, which last year got into a dust storm on the red planet and since then has not been in touch. This is stated in the press release, the aerospace Department.
On the eve of NASA’s last attempt to contact the Mars Rover, which again brought no result. There were about a thousand such attempts.
Opportunity has continued to operate successfully on the red planet until the summer of 2018, after about 45 km.
The last time the Rover was released on bond June 10. Due to powerful and prolonged dust storm, he was transferred to the power saving mode, as bad weather prevented the flow of light on its solar panels.
In the autumn the storm subsided, however, the Rover on the equipment.
The device was originally designed to operate for 90 Martian days and had to drive a total of 1,000 meters. However, by the time the powerful storm, the Rover has been on Mars for 14 years and 195 days, exceeding the planned period is almost 60 times.
Later, the team was able to pinpoint the location of the Rover. Found it in pictures taken by the orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Opportunity is on the slope of the Valley of Perseverance.
Opportunity is the second Rover two running NASA project Mars Exploration Rover. He sank down on the surface of the red planet on 25 January 2004, three weeks later, the first Rover Spirit, which landed on the opposite side of Mars.
They found plenty of evidence that Mars was relatively warm and wet world billions of years ago, changing scientists understanding of planet evolution and the possibility of life on it.
Opportunity relayed to Earth 217 of thousands of images, including 15 colored panoramas. His main achievement was the discovery of minerals formed in water, and other evidence that in the past on the planet’s surface was water.
The first Rover Spirit operated on the surface of Mars until March 2010, after passing of 7.73 km instead of the planned 600 m, which allowed to make more extensive analyses of geological rocks of Mars. After the machine got stuck in a sand dune, it continued to be used as a stationary platform.
In August 2012, on the surface of Mars came down apparatus of the third generation Curiosity, which is several times heavier than Opportunity. It does not depend on sunlight because it uses a nuclear generator. This Rover worked throughout the storms on Mars last year.
In June 2018, NASA reported that Curiosity found molecules of organic compounds of unknown origin in rocks of the red planet.
Born on July 18, 1950, in Athens, Greece, Lisa Flanders went on to study economics at the University of Cambridge, eventually moving to the United States. She was a conservative commentator before switching to liberal politics and started the Web site TheKoztimes.com


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Spinning Up a Nearby Galaxy
Photo by NASA, ESA, R. van der Marel (STScI), and N. Kallivayalil (University of Virginia). Click to galactinate.
Well, this is simply too cool: For the first time, astronomers have directly measured the rotation of another galaxy. How? By actually measuring the stars in that galaxy physically move over time!
This really is pretty phenomenal work, and scientifically it’s pretty important, too. Let me ‘splain.
First, the galaxy in question is the Large Magellanic Cloud (or LMC to those of us in the know), an irregular-looking fuzz ball that just so happens to be one of the closest galaxies in the Universe. It actually orbits our Milky Way like the Moon orbits the Earth. Its distance is about 160,000 light years away—compare that with the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest large spiral to us, which is 2.5 million light years distant.
There are billions of stars in the LMC, and they all orbit the center of the galaxy. It’s a bit like the way planets orbit the Sun, but in our solar system the Sun has essentially all the mass, and therefore all the gravity. In a galaxy, the mass is distributed throughout in the form of stars and gas, giving an overall gravitational field, not a concentrated one. Still, this means stars orbit the center, and their speed depends on the mass of the galaxy and their distance from that center.
The speeds sound ridiculously huge: An average star might be zipping around at 90 kilometers per second, which is 200,000 mph! But remember, in human terms the LMC is a long way off, and that distance shrinks that velocity to something that’s pretty small and hard to detect. Think of how fast an airplane flies, but how slowly one appears to move when it’s far away, and you get the picture.
We do have an indirect way to detect that motion: the Doppler effect. If a star is heading more-or-less toward us, its light gets shifted to the blue end of the spectrum, and if it moves away the light gets redshifted. As a star orbits the galaxy center, it spends half its orbit heading toward us, and half heading away, and this is betrayed by its Doppler shift. We’ve measured the motions of thousands of stars in the LMC this way, but it doesn’t give us the physical direction of the motion; a star heading away from us at an angle is difficult to distinguish from one heading directly away from us. We need that space motion to get the actual directions the stars are moving, but that is so small it’s incredibly difficult to measure.
But we have an extraordinary tool at our disposal: Hubble. Not only does it have excellent eyesight, capable of detecting small changes in a star’s position even in the LMC, but Hubble has also been in use a long time, providing a nice long baseline. After all, if the stars are moving, the longer you wait the more they move! In this case, many years elapsed between observations, providing good coverage of the stars’ motions.
For this study, the astronomers observed nearly 6,800 stars over about seven years. During that time, the teeny tiny amount those stars moved was enough for Hubble to detect. And what they found was pretty dang cool: The stars in the LMC can be seen to orbit the center of the galaxy in a clockwise manner. Not only that, but the overall rotation tells us more about the galaxy, too. For example, although it looks like an irregular mess, the stars appear to be more or less in a flat disk, like Milky Way stars are.
That disk is tilted to us by about 40°, so we’re looking down on it at an angle. But it gets a bit more complicated: When the astronomers split the stars up by age, they found that older stars tend to be in a slightly different plane than the younger ones, like there are two separate disks of stars. It’s not clear why that might be, though I suspect it may be linked to another problem …
The center of a galaxy can be found in many ways. One way is to look at all the gas orbiting it, and use that information to map out the location of the galaxy’s center. Another is to use the motion of the stars themselves, measured as done in this new study (see the picture above). A third way is to find the center using the combined light of all the stars, what’s called the photometric center. Because the galaxy is a bit messy (and has what’s called a bar, a more-or-less rectangular clump of stars across its middle), the photometric center is off a bit compared to the other two. This may be because the galaxy recently had a close encounter with another galaxy, called the Small Magellanic Cloud (guess why?). This near passage may have poked a cosmic stick into the LMC, riling it up and distorting its shape. This would explain the difference between the centers, and it may also explain why young and old stars appear to be laid out in slightly different disks. Gas clouds may have been disturbed in the encounter, so stars born from them could have been born in slightly different orbits from the older generation. I’m speculating here, but it makes a sort of sense.
There’s actually quite a bit more learned from this study, including the overall motion of the LMC in the sky, its mass, the distribution of its mass, and so on. All of this is important for us to understand, because the galaxy is close by and used in many ways as a proxy for more distant galaxies. It’s our baseline, in a sense, and the more we know about it the better we can understand the more distant Universe.
And I’m all for that. Up until recently we didn’t know much about the cosmos outside our galaxy because we simply couldn’t study it in detail (heck, we were unsure of the nature of our own galaxy until less than a century ago). Now, though, we have the tools and the means to get to know it a lot better, and to me that’s one of the greatest achievements of our species. We were born of this Universe and we’re part of it. Understanding it better should always be at the top of our list of priorities.


Deals The Celestron Travel Scope 70 is a great way to jump into skywatching at a great price, and makes for a perfect telescope for on-the-go stargazing adventures.
The U.S. Naval Academy has unveiled the NASA-inspired uniforms it will wear during this year's Army-Navy football game on Dec. 10 that feature iconic space agency logos.
Deals Hulu and Disney Plus have fantastic selections of sci-fi and space-themed shows and movies streaming for just $4.98 a month together during this Cyber Monday 2022 deal.
NASA officials say Artemis 1 mission teams are "giddy" after witnessing how well their Orion spacecraft has been performing so far on its way towards lunar orbit.
Today's historic launch of NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission was saved by a courageous crew of technicians who stepped in to perform a critical repair beneath the fueled Space Launch System rocket.
The most powerful NASA rocket ever built — the Space Launch System — soared into the sky today (Nov. 16) on Artemis 1, a risky test flight to send the Orion capsule to the moon and back.
NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket will be visible for hundreds of miles around during its nighttime launch, scheduled for the early hours of Nov. 16.
NASA has begun tanking up its massive Space Launch System rocket for the third attempt at a debut launch that will send the Orion spacecraft around the moon and back.
Artemis 1 mission managers have determined that the Space Launch System rocket is still ready for a Nov. 16 launch attempt despite suffering slight damage during Hurricane Nicole.
Tropical Storm Nicole continues to batter Florida where NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket waits on the launch pad.
As the launch date for NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission continues to get pushed back due to glitches and storms, a deadline for its solid rocket boosters is quickly approaching.
NASA is sticking by its Nov. 14 launch date for its historic Artemis 1 mission even as a subtropical storm develops in the Atlantic Ocean that is heading toward Kennedy Space Center.
The heads of NASA and the European Space Agency have issued statements condemning the latest example of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket booster falling to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry.
A 23-ton rocket body from China's launch of a Long March 5B rocket has fallen safely into the south-central Pacific Ocean after creating questions over where it will come down once again.
While NASA officials stressed that Artemis 1 continues to be a challenging mission, they stated they are confident in the upcoming launch attempt on Nov. 14.
On Dec. 2, the world will finally get a glimpse at the B-21 Raider, a new stealth bomber that has been described as "the most advanced military aircraft ever built."
Another Chinese Long March 5B rocket body will once again plummet to Earth in the coming days above a yet-to-be-determined location.
Space.com sat down with authors Elizabeth Howell and Dave Williams to discuss their new book on how spaceflight affects the human body, 'Why Am I Taller?'
NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket is once again headed back to the launch pad on Friday (Nov. 4) ahead of its historic lunar mission.
The White House has responded to Russia's assertion that commercial satellites are legitimate targets by stating that a U.S. response would follow any such attacks.
The U.S. midterm elections of 2022 are on Tuesday (Nov. 8), and several key races have the potential to influence space policy for years to come.
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, is in the midst of a wide-ranging science campaign that will see the facility bounce signals off the moon and Jupiter.
The Orionid meteor shower lit up the skies around the world in 2022, and luckily many of our readers were able to catch wonderful images of the "shooting stars."
A cargo ship attached to the International Space Station fired its thrusters for five minutes Monday night (Oct. 24) to dodge a fragment of the destroyed Russian satellite Cosmos 1408.


A seven-mile-wide space rock is hurtling toward Earth, threatening to obliterate the planet. Now, it’s up to the president of the United States to save the world. He appoints a tough-as-nails veteran astronaut to lead a joint American-Russian crew into space to destroy the comet before impact. Meanwhile, an enterprising reporter uses her smarts to uncover the scoop of the century.
Watch Deep Impact 1998 online free, watch Deep Impact free online, Deep Impact FlixHQ, Watch Deep Impact FlixHQ, FlixHQ Deep Impact subbed, watch Deep Impact online FlixHQ, Deep Impact online Oceans Rise. Cities Fall. Hope survives.


setâre-ye kutulé (#)
Fr.: étoile naine
A star that burns its hydrogen content to produce its energy and therefore belongs to the main-sequence luminosity class.
dwarf starburst galaxy
kahkešân-e kutule-ye setâre-belk
Fr.: galaxie naine à flambée d'étoiless
A → starburst galaxy that is a → dwarf galaxy. Examples include: the → dwarf irregular galaxy IC 10, the compact dwarf irregular Henize 2-10, and the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5253.


A physical constant characterizing the properties of vacuum, sometimes introduced in the general theory of relativity. Einstein's equations (cf. Einstein equations) including the cosmological constant are
where is the cosmological constant, is the metric tensor, is the Ricci tensor, is the curvature of space, is the energy-momentum tensor, is the speed of light, and is the gravitational constant. These equations are the Lagrange equations for the action
where is the action for matter and denotes four-dimensional volume. A. Einstein introduced the cosmological constant in the general theory of relativity  in order to ensure that the equations of the gravitational field admit a spatially homogeneous static solution (the so-called Einstein cosmological model). However, since the advent of Friedmann's evolutionary cosmological model and its experimental verification, the fact that the original Einstein equations have no such solution is not considered a defect of the theory. There are no reliable indications that the cosmological constant is distinct from zero. However, the existence of a sufficiently small cosmological constant does not contradict the observed data or general physical principles.
The existence of a cosmological constant may essentially modify certain steps in the evolution of the most widespread cosmological models (see , Chapt. 4). In this connection, it has been proposed that cosmological models with a cosmological constant should be utilized to explain certain properties of the distribution of quasars (see , , ).
The term in the gravitational field equations may be incorporated in the energy-momentum tensor of vacuum (see ). In this case, vacuum has energy density and pressure , corresponding to the state equation . In a theory with a cosmological constant the properties of vacuum already appear in the non-relativistic approximation. Thus, the gravitational potential of a point mass in a theory with a cosmological constant is (see , Chapt. 16)
The term is invariant under transformations of the local Lorentz group, corresponding to the principle of Lorentz-invariance of vacuum in quantum field theory. The concept of the cosmological constant as an index of the energy density and pressure of vacuum makes it possible, in principle, to relate the concept of a cosmological constant with the concepts of quantum field theory. There are various formulas that link the value of the cosmological constant to the fundamental physical constants and the age of the Universe (see , Chapt. 24).
|||A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wissenschaft. (1917) pp. 142–152|
|||Ya.B. Zel'dovich, I.D. Novikov, "Relativistic astrophysics" , 2. Relativistic astrophysics , Chicago (1983) (Translated from Russian)|
|||V. Petrosian, E. Salpeter, P. Szekeres, Astrophys. J. , 147 (1967) pp. 1222–1226|
|||I.S. Shklovskii, Astron. Tsirkulyar , 429 (1967)|
|||N.S. Kardashev, Astron. Tsirkulyar , 430 (1967)|
|||R.C. Tolman, "Relativity, thermodynamics and cosmology" , Clarendon Press (1934)|
|[a1]||S. Weinberg, "Gravitation and cosmology" , Wiley (1972)|
Cosmological constant. Encyclopedia of Mathematics. URL: http://encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=Cosmological_constant&oldid=12365


The scientific answer is actually pretty interesting, and has a lot to do with the ecosystem, landscape, and something called scattering. Small particles and molecules found in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays as the sun goes up or down. The color of the scattered light is determined by the size of molecule or particle and the actual wavelength of light. Because Arizona is generally dry, dust particles are able to float effortlessly on the breeze, so there’s a lot of them available for scattering. More particles equal more color. Here’s where the locals go to catch the colors:
Freestone Park – The best view is at the lake on the north end of the park. Watch the sunrise from Juniper east of the soccer fields and large playground.
Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch – Catch the sunrise at cactus garden near the parking lot, east of the library.
Spectacular sunsets can be seen from the top of the parking garage east of Culinary Dropout.
Usery Mountain Regional Park, though not in Gilbert, is a top local pick for another stellar view of the Arizona sunrise.


I was reading this article this morning:
Scientists have discovered a gamma-ray burst whose light has taken 13.14 billion years to reach Earth. This much is cool and interesting. However, the assumption is then stated that this is "the most distant single object yet spied by a telescope".
But hold on a minute. It is also known that galaxies are moving away from each other at incredible speeds, most faster than the speed of light, because the space/time between them is expanding (or something like that... I'm no scientist!)
So these so-called amazingly distant objects, well for starters, they don't exist any more... They are things that happened billions of years ago. But not only that, they are probably objects that were only a few million light years away from us when they actually took place. So surely then, the objects themselves aren't the most distant ones, but the light from them has been distorted such that the light has taken that long to reach us?
Furthermore, if the galaxies are spreading out faster than the speed of light, who is to say this explosion actually happened 13.1 billion years ago? Isn't it possible that the light was created say 5 billion years ago, but has taken much longer to reach us because of the expanding space between the galaxies?
I'm sure this stuff has already been considered by scientists, but I find it weird the way news articles always assume that just because light travels at a specific speed, that it's always going to take the same amount of time to reach us.
Or am I getting it wrong? I'd love to know!


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Huge space explosion catches everyone by surprise
A nova – a massive nuclear explosion thrown from a white dwarf star – usually doesn't emit gamma-rays, the most energetic known form of light. But this one did.
NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration
An unexpected and powerful new kind of star explosion has been discovered in the heavens — a so-called gamma-ray nova that radiates the most energetic form of light in the universe.
A nova is a massive thermonuclear explosion from a white dwarf star fueled by mass from a companion star. Unlike supernovas, novas do not result in the destruction of their stars. Researchers had expected and seen X-rays from the resulting waves of expanding gas in prior novas. But unlike with supernovas, they had not seen gamma-rays emitted by novas.
Now researchers have discovered a nova that shed gamma rays, which are even more powerful than X-rays, by using the Fermi Large Area Telescope in orbit around the Earth, the most sensitive gamma-ray space telescope ever flown. [Photo of the gamma-ray nova.]
Gamma-ray star explosion


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Happy solstice, Bustle readers! As you probably already know, December 21st is the winter solstice. At 5:03 p.m. (Central Standard Time), the northern hemisphere will lean the furthest away from the sun as it does all year which, practically speaking, makes for the shortest day and longest night of the year.
But not, as some believe, the longest night of all time. The Internet was freaking out earlier today when reports surfaced that tonight will in fact be the longest night in the history of the Earth, which is fun to think about, I guess, but not exactly true. Why would we have thought that in the first place? It has something to do with the astronomy of the solstice. Since its birth as a planet, the Earth's rotation has generally been slowing, scientists believe. This slight rotational slowing is mostly caused by the way that the Earth's oceans and the moon exert tidal friction on each other; this tidal friction causes a teensy part of the rotation energy to be transferred into heat on the Earth (i.e., part of the rotation energy is essentially lost), and keeps the Earth from spinning quite as fast as it used to. In fact, the timekeeping Powers That Be have had to add "leap seconds" to our official time here on Earth in order to compensate for this gradual slowing: 25 leap seconds have been added in all, periodically since 1972.
All other things being equal, then, each solstice on a constantly-slowing Earth should theoretically go down as the new "longest night ever." But in reality, intervening factors affect how quickly the Earth rotates, like the speed of surface winds and how the lopsidedness of Earth's oceans causes them to move irregularly. Although the rotation speed of the Earth has slowed over some time periods due to tidal friction, in recent decades the Earth's rotation has sped back up a bit, possibly because the polar ice caps partially melted down and redistributed the Earth's water weight (think of how a top spins differently depending on its shape). So, while tonight will be pretty darn long, the literal longest night ever was probably sometime in the 20th century. I know, I know guys. Science reporting: it's hard!
Image: kichigin19/Fotolia , Giphy


Take a look at our top spots for stargazing. Safety is really important to us. We've got lots of tips on how to have fun completing our '50 things' activities, while keeping safe. Read our general advice and discover links to useful websites containing more information.
Why not take a walk with a difference? Walking at night in places far from light pollution can reward you with stunning views of the stars. We've created several routes that make the most of the landscape and the open skies above. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Email. Before you begin Stargazing is best done before the moon is full, so check the phase of the moon before you plan a trip. The night sky is constantly changing, depending on the time of year and the time of night. Try stargazing at different points throughout the year to spot seasonal constellations.
We hold stargazing events for all the family throughout the year. Give your local National Trust place a call to see if there is an event coming up near you. Download an app like Star Walk iPhone or Google Sky android to your mobile or tablet, and they will tell you what stars you can see from your current location. The next planet due to come into view will be Mars , which rises soon after a. So, the Red Planet must be a morning star.
Revelations printed in The Evening and the Morning Star, June –June , Page 1
With Mercury and Venus, there is never such ambiguity, as they are never very far from the sun in the sky. In fact, in the pre-Christian era, both of these planets had dual identities — two names — as initially, it was not realized that they alternately appeared on one side of the sun and then on the other. Mercury was called Apollo when it shone as a morning star, and was called Mercury when it appeared in the evening sky. Venus was Phosphorus in the morning and Hesperus in the evening.
We can thank Pythagoras around the 5th century B. Because they orbit the sun more closely than Earth does, Mercury and Venus are called "inferior" planets. Elongation refers to the angle between the sun and a planet, as seen from Earth.
Top tips for stargazing
In general, when Mercury or Venus has a western elongation from the sun, it is a morning star; with an eastern elongation, it is an evening star. This rule can be extended to the planets that orbit the sun beyond our own orbit — the so-called "superior" planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. When a superior planet is in the same spot in the sky as the sun, it is at conjunction. While a superior planet is moving from conjunction with the sun to just a day prior to its opposition when it is directly opposite the sun in the sky , it is a morning star.
The first long white candlestick forms in the direction of the trend. It signals that significant buying pressure remains, but could also indicate excessive bullishness. Immediately following, the small candlestick forms with a gap down on the open, indicating a sudden shift towards the sellers and a potential reversal. This harami consists of a long black candlestick and a small black candlestick. The decline two days later confirmed the bearish harami and the stock fell to the low twenties. Merck MRK formed a bearish harami with a long white candlestick and long black candlestick red oval.
The long white candlestick confirmed the direction of the current trend. However, the stock gapped down the next day and traded in a narrow range. The decline three days later confirmed the pattern as bearish.
The long white candlestick confirms that buying pressure remains strong and the trend is up. When the second candlestick gaps up, it provides further evidence of residual buying pressure. However, the advance ceases or slows significantly after the gap and a small candlestick forms, indicating indecision and a possible reversal of trend. The third long black candlestick provides bearish confirmation of the reversal.
The middle candlestick is a spinning top , which indicates indecision and possible reversal.
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The gap above 91 was reversed immediately with a long black candlestick. Even though the stock stabilized in the next few days, it never exceeded the top of the long black candlestick and subsequently fell below The bearish abandoned baby resembles the evening doji star and also consists of three candlesticks:. The main difference between the evening doji star and the bearish abandoned baby are the gaps on either side of the doji.
The first gap up signals a continuation of the uptrend and confirms strong buying pressure.
However, buying pressure subsides after the gap up and the security closes at or near the open, creating a doji. Following the doji, the gap down and long black candlestick indicate strong and sustained selling pressure to complete the reversal. Further bearish confirmation is not required. Although the open and close are not exactly equal, the small white candlestick in the middle captures the essence of a doji. Indecision is reflected with the small body and equal upper and lower shadows. In addition, the middle candlestick is separated by gaps on either side, which add emphasis to the reversal.
- If You Cant Calm the Waters Learn to Ride the Waves ENLARGED PRINT;
- Cruelle Énigme (French Edition).
- Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton;
- The Morning and Evening Stars - Windows to the Universe;
- Top tips for stargazing | National Trust;
- Goodman for Architects (Thinkers for Architects)?
- The Iliad - (Annotated) Revised Derby Translation?
Charts with Current CandleStick Patterns. Bearish Abandoned Baby 3. Engulfing, Bearish 2. Harami, Bearish 2.
Dark Cloud Cover 2. Evening Star 3. Shooting Star 1. A security could be deemed in an uptrend based on one or more of the following: The security is trading above its day exponential moving average EMA. The evening star consists of three candlesticks: A long white candlestick. A small white or black candlestick that gaps above the close body of the previous candlestick.
This candlestick can also be a doji, in which case the pattern would be an evening doji star. The bearish abandoned baby resembles the evening doji star and also consists of three candlesticks: A long white candlestick.


Ok I know what you are thinking: An article on Elenin AGAIN? Yes, I’m sorry but I find this evidence so thrilling that I had to share it with you. It has been circulating the Internet for a while now, yet I lost track of it and recently stumbled on it again. I did some research on my own and made some amazing discoveries. In the next few minutes you are about to see how a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler(1770) carefully drew out the situation of the planets and comet Elenin on September 26th 2011 on the back of a 10 Swiss Franc note, Switzerland’s national currency! Ok, he probably did not drew the image himself, but he did discover an asteroid later named ‘Euler’ which is supposed to be drawn on the Swiss bank note, yet the path of the Euler asteroid doesn’t seem to correspond with what is drawn on the 10 Swiss Franc note.
This particular Swiss note is from the ’6th Series’ of Swiss bank notes, issued in November 1979 and withdrawn in May 2000.
Look at the circles. The blue-green circles represent the orbits of the planets in our solar system. The red dot in each circle represents the location of a planet. The big red dot in the center represents our Sun. The first circle represents Mercury’s orbit and the red dot on this circle represents Mercury. The second is Venus. The third is Earth. Notice the blue dot circling the Earth, this is the Moon(which is emphasised by the symbol of a moon drawn near it). The next circle is representing Mars and its orbit. The next circle represents a planet with five moons, which is Jupiter(Jupiter has 64 moons). The final circle is Saturn with its moons(Saturn has 62 Moons). The red elliptical orbit represents the path of a long period object like a comet, which I think is Elenin. Note the blue object within this elliptical orbit and its tail.
The symbols near the planets are the exact symbols given to these planets by astronomists(not astrologists, these are different symbols).
Ok so what does this all mean? Does it mean Leonhard Euler really predicted a comet would be coming in at a certain point in time? Well let’s find out!
This particular arrangement of planets points to a specific point in time. There is only one short period in time that our planets in our solar system line up precisly as in this configuration. This mathmetical drawing emphasises a specific date. To find out what date this drawing represents, we have to use NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Tool to see if anything matches our configuration of planets as shown on the Swiss Franc bill. Let’s try Elenin’s Orbital Diagram. This diagram depicts the location of all our planets and comet ELENIN. BINGO! If you set the date to 09/26/11 (Elenin aligns perfectly with Sun-Earth-Mercury on this date), the following picture results.
Almost an exact copy of our 10 Swiss Franc bill. Except the elliptical orbit of Elenin is precisly mirrored in the JPL image and it seems that Jupiter is on the spot where Saturn was supposed to be. But we can’t blame Leonhard Euler for he was working on this 330 years ago.
Here I inverted the color of NASA’s JPL image of Elenin, so that its more easy to compare.
Furthermore, in the background of the picture you see a water turbine. This was a project Leonhard Euler used to be working on.
Did you already notice the guy’s name is LEOnhard Euler, while the man who discover Elenin is named LEOnid Elenin? Leonhard Euler spent most of his life living in Russia, while astromoner Leonid Elenin IS Russian. All of this together is some very convincing evidence that something is going on here. Such coincidence cannot exist in my opinion.
Due to Switzerland’s neutral position on Earth, the Swiss Franc is one of the most stable currencies of all times, maybe Leonhard Euler knew that this would be the case, thus ended up drawing his predictions on the 10 Swiss Franc bill.
Other Swiss Franc bills show some weird stuff as well(i.e. very tall beings and a saucer-like object), you can Google them if u like!
CIA torture is reason for France to exit NATO – Le Pen 2014-12-17 20:20 The shocking revelations of CIA torture techniques give France a reason to exit NATO, National Front party leader Marine Le Pen said on Saturday. The report on the CIA’s former interrogation practices has drawn wide criticism since its release.
“If indeed everyone is outraged by the tortures used by the US then, let’s leave NATO,” Le Pen said during an interview ...
900 Documented Examples of Obama's Lawbreaking, Lying, Corruption, Cronyism, Hypocrisy & Waste 2014-12-17 20:00
By Tim Brown from sonsoflibertymedia.com:
Our friend, Dan from Squirrel Hill, has updated his list to 900 documented examples of Barack Obama¡¯s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc. He began with 252 examples, then quickly grew to 504 and later to 694. Recently, he added more than 200 more examples of the usurper-in-chief¡¯s unlawful acts.
Every President, every politician, and every human ...
A Step Closer to the Mysterious Origin of the Viking Sword Ulfberht 2014 12 16
The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In "Beyond Science" Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.
Ulfberht was like a Medieval luxury brand for swords—but unlike your Gucci purse, the swords were of such high quality they were almost ...
Israel proposes natural gas pipeline to Southern Europe 2014-12-16 12:39
Israel is pushing for the European Union (EU) to approve the construction of a pipeline running from the Middle Eastern country to supply Cyprus, Greece and Italy with natural gas. The proposed EastMed pipeline will carry gas from the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields located in the Mediterranean Sea, to Southern Europe. As the Times of Israel reported in an ...
As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up 2014 12 16 A machine that administers sedatives recently began treating patients at a Seattle hospital. At a Silicon Valley hotel, a bellhop robot delivers items to people’s rooms. Last spring, a software algorithm wrote a breaking news article about an earthquake that The Los Angeles Times published.
Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there ...


Date of Award
Master of Science (MS)
Aerospace, Physics, and Space Sciences
Daniel R. Kirk
Hector M. Gutierrez
David C. Fleming
This thesis proposes a new experimental approach to extract pendulum model parameters from spacecraft propellant tank slosh data. The novelty of the approach is in the utilization of steady-state triaxial force measurements at the support points of the tank under sinusoidal excitation, which enables repeatable and accurate determination of pendulum model parameters in contrast to the single-axis force sensing and multiple repetitions averaging techniques associated with the more common decay approach. This approach may be used for tanks with free slosh; however, this thesis considers a diagram tank with three different diaphragm configurations under translational oscillatory lateral excitation. With the aid of a parameter optimization technique prevalently used in machine learning, the proposed methodology identifies the pendulum model parameters based on an adaptive gradient descent on the error surface defined in the parameter space. The proposed approach is validated by comparing experimental measurements against model-predicted behavior, and the numerical procedure is verified against a quasi-Newton method. Moreover, the extracted pendulum model parameters enable prediction of the frequency response functions for both the apparent mass and apparent mass moment as function of excitation frequency, and the methodology enables extraction of higher order vibration modes
Gao, Tengjie, "Extraction of Pendulum Model Parameters from Steady-state Slosh Data with Adaptive Gradient Descending Optimization Method for Spacecraft Propellant Tanks" (2021). Theses and Dissertations. 520.


The 16th of July 2019 was the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s launch from Cape Canaveral to land men on the moon. Unfortunately, the Moon had not been briefed on what to expect from NASA’s Apollo programme. What he saw was strange objects periodically crashing onto his surface from 1969 onwards, scorching and blowing up his dusty regolith. Even stranger things emerged from some of them, each shrouded in white with a reflective, bowl-shaped lump on top. He had no idea that these had come from the beautiful blue planet which he has been orbiting these last 4½ billion years, and saw no reason to celebrate. Especially when he discovered what they had left behind . . .
Said the Man in the Moon, “Are you coming back soon
To collect all the junk you rejected?
All those stages and probes (and, maybe, microbes?)
And stuff that I hadn’t expected:
“Bags of urine and poo, a telescope too,
Two golf balls, three buggies, a feather,
Six flags, a shot of the Duke family lot1,
Twelve Hasselblads, dumped here for ever2.
“And you bowl-headed creatures, whose internal features
Are shrouded in shiny white skin,
Pinched some of the dust that covers my crust
And a 3-metre core from within.3
“I dread the hot burn of your rocket’s return:
I don’t want to be a space tip.
Things here don’t erode, wash away or corrode –
Please keep that in mind on your next trip.
“Things were peaceful before you arrived to explore,
As quietly in orbit I’d roam;
But my brain’s been set stirring and a thought keeps recurring:
I wonder where you lot call home?
“When I look out at space, I can see a nice place:
A beautiful dot, white and blue,
So pristine and pure. Too good, to be sure,
To be home to such vandals as you . . .”
- A photo of Apollo 16’s crew member Charlie Duke’s family
- ripleys.com, bbc.com and newscientist.com


Surrey Satellite Technology LTD
SSTL is an independent satellite manufacturer within the Airbus Defence & Space group. We have been delivering small satellite missions since 1985, employing 500 staff, Facilities in Surrey, Kent, Hampshire & Colorado. 30 years is the longest for a satellite manufacturer in our field, which gives us the experience to justify our reputation as the world’s premier provider of operational and commercial satellite programmes. In that time we have launched 47 satellites, an average of 1.5 a year since 1990.
- Provide complete in-house design, manufacture, launch and operation of small satellites
- Deliver complete mission solutions for remote sensing, science, navigation and telecommunications
- Deliver space training and development programmes including on-the-job customer training
- Design and build remote sensing and communications payloads
- Supply avionics suites and subsystems
- Build and install ground infrastructure
- Provide consultancy services
We first changed the economics of space in the late 1970s when we pioneered ‘commercial off the shelf’ (COTS) satellite technology. This process took standard consumer technology, such as those used in personal computers, and adapted them to the unique environment of space. Until then, satellite equipment was purpose-built for space travel, at huge expense and taking many years, with the result that the technology was obsolete by the time of launch.
Typical missions include:
- Earth observation and imaging
- Navigation and telecommunications
- Scientific research
- Military/defence purposes
- Technology demonstration (testing an instrument in space)
We can develop satellites throughout their life cycle – from design and build through to launch and in-orbit monitoring and maintenance – or any stage of that cycle. For customers who want to monitor and maintain their own satellites, we set up their ground station and train their in-house team. We are able to offer such flexibility because we design, build, assemble and test our satellites and almost all their components in-house.
Mark Ferris, Mechanisms Team leader
Tel: +44 (0)1483 803873
SSTL Official Web Page: http://www.sstl.co.uk/


ORLANDO, FLA.—An Atlas V rocket with the U.S. Space Force’s experimental mini space shuttle successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Sunday morning.
“3. 2. 1. There’s ignition and liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with USSF-7 for the United States Space Force on a mission dedicated to America Strong,” said commentator Tyler Strickland on the company’s live stream of the launch.
The 9:14 a.m. launch that ferried the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle back to space for the sixth time took place amid mostly clear skies from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 41.
The launch was the 84th for an Atlas V rocket and 139th ULA mission overall, but only the seventh time for Atlas V in this particular configuration that allowed for a wider payload and no side-mounted solid rocket boosters. The X-37B is 29 feet long with a 14-foot wingspan.
The launch was deemed essential amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the Department of Defense and ULA dedicated it as part of the America Strong campaign, which has also included flyovers from the Air Force Thunderbirds and Navy Blue Angels across U.S. cities in the last few weeks. ULA personnel followed health guidelines including wearing face coverings and keeping social distance during the launch countdown.
“The success of this mission resulted from collaboration with our customer while working through challenging, and ever changing, health and safety conditions,” said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs in a press release. “We were honoured to partner with the U.S. Space Force to dedicate this mission to first responders, front-line workers, and those affected by COVID-19. It is truly a unique time in our history and I want to thank the entire team for their continued dedication and focus on mission success.”
It was the second National Security Space Launch for the newly designated branch of the armed forces.
Bad weather on Saturday from what formed into the season’s first tropical storm created a rocket domino effect that also pushed a planned Sunday SpaceX launch of its Starlink satellites.
That SpaceX Falcon 9 mission now targeting a 3:10 a.m. liftoff Tuesday is slated to carry another 60 of the company’s Starlink satellites from launch complex 40, the eighth planned Starlink launch for the company.
ULA’s Sunday launch returned the uncrewed X-37B designed by Boeing back to low-Earth orbit for another long-term mission.
One of at least two X-37B vehicles returned from orbit on its fifth mission in late 2019, landing at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility after spending more than two years in space. All but one of the six missions were launched by ULA since its first in 2010 with SpaceX ferrying it to space the last time around in 2017. The five previous missions have seen the vehicle in orbit for 2,865 days.
The Department of Defense uses the vehicle to test technologies for long-duration missions and bring them safely back to Earth. The latest mission will host more experiments than any previous by using for the first time a service module attached to the rear of the spaceplane.
Some announced missions include the FalconSat-8, a small educational satellite developed by U.S. Air Force Academy with five experiments on board; two NASA experiments to study radiation and other space effects on various materials and on seeds to grow food; and a U.S. Naval Research Laboratory experiment that seeks to transform solar power into radio frequency microwave energy that can be transmitted to the ground.
The vehicle remains an Air Force asset, but the newly designated Space Force is responsible for its launch, life in orbit and landing.
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“The X-37B team continues to exemplify the kind of lean, agile and forward-leaning technology development we need as a nation in the space domain,” said U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond. “Each launch represents a significant milestone and advancement in terms of how we build, test, and deploy space capabilities in a rapid and responsive manner.”
ULA’s next planned launch will be the Mars 2020 mission with rover Perseverance on an Atlas V rocket on July 17 from Cape Canaveral.
An Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Poses ‘No Danger’ On Saturday Night, Says NASA – Forbes
A huge near-Earth asteroid will pass our planet tonight at a safe distance of 3.2 million miles, according to NASA.
After a spate of doom-laden headlines the space agency felt the need yesterday to update a previous post about near-Earth asteroids with the following note:
“Asteroid 2002 NN4 will safely pass by the Earth on June 6 at a distance of approximately 3.2 million miles (5.1 million kilometers), about 13 times further away from the Earth than the Moon is. There is no danger the asteroid will hit the Earth.”
Asteroid 2002 NN4’s closest approach to Earth will be at 11:20 p.m. EDT. on Saturday, June 6, 2020.
NASA also tweeted the same advice:
NASA Asteroid Watch then tweeted this image of the asteroid’s trajectory:
How big is Asteroid 2002 NN4?
Asteroid 2002 NN4 is huge. Measuring between 820 feet and 1,870 feet (250 meters to 570 meters) according to Space.com. New York City’s Empire State Building is 443.2 meters tall, including its antenna.
That’s over a dozen times bigger than the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. That was the biggest meteor for over a century.
Would asteroid 2002 NN4 be dangerous if it hit Earth?
Yes—asteroid 2002 NN4 is city-killer size, but it’s not going to cause any harm to anyone.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Crew Dragon with two NASA astronauts docks to ISS – TASS
NEW YORK, May 31. /TASS/. The Crew Dragon spacecraft with Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on board has successfully docked to the International Space Station (ISS), as follows from a NASA broadcast on Sunday.
The spacecraft began approaching the ISS about two hours before docking than was carried out 10:16 ahead of the schedule. The Crew Dragon spacecraft was launched using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 22.22 pm Moscow time on May 30 from the Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Crew Dragon is a configuration of the cargo spacecraft Dragon, which had already delivered cargoes to the ISS. A Falcon-9 rocket put the cargo vehicle in space on March 2. Its docking with the ISS was carried out automatically the next day.
NASA stopped crewed flights in 2011 after the Space Shuttle program came to an end. From that moment on all astronauts were delivered to the ISS and back by Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. Originally the Untied States was to start using commercial spacecraft for crewed missions in 2017.
Toddler could be battling rare syndrome in response to COVID-19 – Winnipeg Free Press
More than a month after testing positive for COVID-19, a Winnipeg toddler is fighting another illness – a possible rare inflammatory syndrome that could be part of the body’s reaction to new viruses.
The girl’s mother told CBC News doctors are trying to find out whether the one-year-old has developed Kawasaki disease, or multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, now that she is negative for COVID-19 but is still seriously ill.
To read more of this story first reported by CBC News, click here.
The Winnipeg Free Press and CBC Manitoba recognize each other as trusted news sources. This content is made available to our readers as part of an agreement to collaborate to better serve our community. Any questions about CBC content should be directed to: email@example.com
Coronavirus 'a devastating blow for world economy' – BBC News
Spurs’ Gregg Popovich: U.S. ‘is in trouble and the basic reason is race’ – Sportsnet.ca
Public health working to contain latest COVID-19 outbreaks – StCatharinesStandard.ca
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Two Eastern myths about the Milky Way
The seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar has special meaning to two Asian cultures.
When it is a clear night, the stars Vega and Altair shine brightly in the night sky. Millions of Chinese and Japanese people look up the Milky Way and reminisce the touching legends about these two stars.
The Japanese version:
According to a very ancient legend, a boy of 15 and a girl of 12 had wed and lived happily ever after into old age. They were so close that one could not live without the other. After they had passed away in each other's arms,
the merciful gods raised them up in the heavens together as the girl star Vega and the boy star Altair, who now dwell on opposite banks of the Milky Way. Many Japanese couples will ask their blessings of marital happiness.
The Chinese version:
Legend has it that a guilty but beautiful lesser goddess in heaven had been punished and thrown down to the Earth for seven years. She fell in love and married a young farmer.
The supreme god granted her petition to stay on Earth, but his wife, a cruel but powerful goddess, threatened to kill the husband and a son if she would not return to the heaven immediately.
The poor girl flew skyward when her family was sleeping. But the husband woke up, carried their son and started to chase after her.
Responding to his pitiful pleading, the supreme god sent many thousands of birds to carry them to the sky. Unfortunately, the birds failed to carry the hus band across the Milky Way, a huge river created by the wife of the supreme god.
That is how the girl star Maiden (Chinese name for Vega) and the boy star Cowboy (Chinese name for Altair) stay forever on the opposite banks of the Milky Way.
It is said that numerous birds will build a bridge with their wings for the two stars to meet on the eve of the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
This year the seventh day of the seventh month was Aug. 24.
Even though their legends are different, the Chinese and the Japanese all observe their customs annually.
MDRV Shiao-shen Zedi is a native of China who lives in Pueblo West.


Year 9 enjoyed a trip to the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, to develop their knowledge of radio signals as part of their science studies!
The students enjoyed exploring the centre's fantastic interactive displays and activities, all centered around space and the science behind their huge telescope.
Students visited the Planet Paviliion and the Space Pavillion, before stopping for lunch at the site's famous Lovell Telescope. We especially enjoyed trying out the Whispering Dishes: These demonstrate, using sound, how the curved shape of the Lovell telescope amplifies faint signals.
Thank you to Mr. Jones and Ms. Wheelton for a great trip!


Nasa’s Curiosity Rover Touches Down on Mars
August 7, 2012
The Fresh Outlook
Today Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory celebrated Curiosity Rover’s flawless landing on Mars, hoping to find evidence of ancient habitable environments.
University of Leicester scientist Dr John Bridges is leading a team of British and French experts in California to analyse data from the $2.5bn (£1.6bn) project. Writing on his blog, he said: “It’s down – Landed! What an opportunity we have now to explore this fascinating planet.” Several parachutes, cranes and other complex pieces of equipment were used in the touch down.
The target landing spot for Curiosity was the Gale Crater. The space machine is due to explore Mount Sharp, a 5km mountain within the crater, which is thought to have held water at some point.
Curiosity Rover is approximately the size of a small car and composed of many high-tech gadgets including a robotic arm, a high resolution camera and a laser. Recent pictures sent from Curiosity show the ground to be relatively flat and void of big rocks, enabling the vehicle to drive around easier.
The Nasa team are keenly awaiting a colour image of the planet, which should arrive within the next few days. Curiosity Rover may take a test drive in a week or two, but serious exploration will not start for a couple of months.
By Zosia Gamgee
[Image courtesy of Luke Bryant]


|Star Trek Meets |
- Space Safari
Going beyond Star Trek, beyond Space 1999, and easily beyond Star Wars.
Converging with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and Jurassic World and Jurassic Park.
Welcome to Space Safari.
Ah, the Final Frontier!
Sparing all effort on technological creativity and operating under a budget of $1.20, I finally finished the video accompaniment to the space soundtrack "Space Safari."
Here is the intro text to the video in case you have trouble reading:
"1700 years a go, a pre-Cambrian Englishman was commissioned by the Neolithic Universityfor the studies of imaginary black holes . . .
to study strange new worlds and civilizations and boldly go where no caveman has gone before . . . but he was irascible.
Being a young whippersnapper with a chimp on his shoulder he decided to ditch the scientific dogma of the Big Bang and . . . embark on his own interstellar expedition to discover if there are other zoological creations in the galaxy.
Since this was 1700 BILLION years ago, a time when space travel was very difficult, this mad Englishman, by the name of Fred Figstone, employed the assistance of his number one student, Barney Rebel, to develop a time machine to travel through the universal atmosphere.
Barney was the discoverer of the aether, and since gravity wasn't discovered yet for billions of years, there was no gravity to hold them back.
They were looking to bag big game and place head trophies on their cave walls.
Unfortunately, Barney was too advanced for machinery and their time machine - space ship exceeded warp factor five and thrust them into a wormhole which stranded them in Outer Space in the year 1985 . . .
They subsequently got Lost in Space on their very special Space Safari."
That last part just brings a tear to my eye. In any event, I was just having fun and hope you got a kick out of the video. The meat lies in the music. This version of Space Safari (the soundtrack) is the extended version to cover the length of the video.
Did you know that the original song was under 3 minutes and the full video was over 10 minutes?
So, I extended the song (remastered it, too) and edited the visuals. Yes many cool scenes were cut and ended up on the projector floor. Oh, that's right, I didn't use movie film. Duh!
Anyway, since this is about space, and time travel and dinosaurs and elephants, it fits in perfectly with the work we are doing here at Mad Experiment.
Star Trek Theme (Always brings a tear to my eye!)
Star Gate SG1 Theme - Best Sci Fi Theme in recent years
Space 1999 - I love Martin Landau and Barbara Baines
Jurassic World 2015
Although I love the original series of Star Trek (and The Next Generation) as a kid, I did not watch Kirk and Spock. I was a fan of Lost In Space and watched that instead. NOW I watch reruns of both shows and hands down, I love the themes from Lost In Space first and foremost. (It's not as sad as Star Trek's).
Listen to this . . . .
2 version of Lost In Space Theme
My Favorite Version of Lost In Space Theme
(This version opens with computer-like sounds and has great brass, composed by John Williams. If this link breaks or is discontinued, please let me know.) And I love the robot.
Gotta get back on the big hunt on my Space Safari.


Israelian explores distant objects in the universe using spectroscopy. By looking at the spectral signature of distant object, he can infer the qualities and behaviors of the objects. He thinks spectroscopy will be how we finally discover whether there is life elsewhere outside of our solar system.
Israelian discovered that stars sometimes swallow their planets — not by direct observation of the event, but by looking at the spectral signature of a star, which indicated that lithium was present in the star. (Lithium, we know from physics, is not normally present in stars without them having devoured another type of object.) “The power of spectroscopy was actually discovered by Pink Floyd,” he joked.
We do not yet understand the spectrum of the Sun. 15% of the spectral lines we see from the Sun are not understood.
Supernovae, the largest disasters in space, are the only places where the elements required for planets — and for life itself — are created. We owe our existence to the existence of supernovas.
A colleague showed Israelian an interesting spectrum that included a huge amount of oxygen. This amount of oxygen had never been seen before. And the conclusion was that a supernova had occurred in a star system, and that explosion had created a black hole.
Our galaxy also includes some “alien” stars — they are stars that have come from other galaxies. When galaxies collide, some stars are left behind, and spectroscopy allows us to detect which ones are “foreign.”
He also looks at a binary star with a phenomenon called a “super flare.” What causes extremely large super flares? No one knows — but he hopes that the mystery of super flares will be finally explained by spectroscopy.
But first, we need to understand the whole evolution of the universe, and how the objects have been producing and recycling various chemical elements. It’s an extraordinarily complex study, and occasionally some anomalies appear. Those anomalies, Israelian thinks, may help us discover other life elsewhere in the universe. Biomarkers such as oxygen and ozone may indicate whether a planet is hospitable to life. In fact, water and methane have already been detected on distant planets outside of our solar system.
Photo: Garik Israelian at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 6: “Curious and curiouser,” July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson


Found 50 - 60 results of 111 programs matching keyword "life on mars"
The Mars Phoenix Lander will have been collecting data and sending it back to earth for a month! Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty will examine the data and tell us what new information we've gained about Mars. We'll also get an update on our old friends, the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity!
Learn more about the new mission to Mars! The Mars Phoenix Lander touched down on the Red Planet on Sunday, May 25, 2008, and began collecting data. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and search for complex organic molecules in the Martian arctic's ice-rich soil. Join Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty as he walks us through the mission and shows us the first pictures that the Phoenix Lander sends back! This machinima, a movie made entirely within Second Life (a 3-D virtual world), shows a simulation of the impact of a meteor on the surface of Mars. Join Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty as he gives us an update on Mars and examines the possibility of an upcoming asteroid collision with the red planet! The two Mars Rovers are alive and well after surviving their second Martian winter. Come and see photos of discoveries they made during their third year on Mars, with Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty.
Join Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck as she investigates the characteristics of living organisms and ecosystems, and how climate change affects them. Setting up camp at the Kamchatka Microbial Observatory. The bath pool at the Kamchatka Microbial Observatory. Searching for diesel at the Kamchatka Microbial Observatory. The Geyser Valley is a "candy shop" for microbiologists and geochemists.


The White Nights in Finland and other Nordic countries
I spent Midsummer in the Nordic countries last year. Oh boy, what an experience. One of the things I still had on my to-do list for Finland and the Nordic countries was to spend one of the white nights fully awake. And I did well: I stayed awake three nights.
The sun leaves and the white night starts.
Table of Contents
Nights with light
It is hard to sleep in Finland during the summer, especially for people who are not used to that. The amount of hours without direct sunlight is very small, and the sun is already shining very brightly on the horizon around 3 or 4 a.m.
The locals don’t seem to notice – and there are no shutters in Finland’s bedrooms – but people like me, who are used to the simple routine of daylight during the day, darkness at night, wake up more often during the white nights and don’t rest as well.
But while visiting Finland or any other Nordic country it is, of course, a wonderful experience: The body has much more energy and – if the clouds let it – it leaves you smiling. I enjoy spending as much time as possible under the sun after a dark winter.
That’s a lot of light for it being midnight.
The white nights
The white nights aren’t the same as the midnight sun, but almost.
Both phenomena happen in the north of Europe, but the midnight sun happens much further north; to be precise, north of the arctic circle. In this place the sun is visible in the sky during 24 hours at least one day per year. In the northernmost parts of Europe the sun stays up in the sky for weeks without setting.
But what happens below the arctic circle line? That’s where the white nights happen.
During the white nights the sun sets for a while, but its light can still be seen on the horizon. The night sky isn’t black, it is blue.
The nights are brigt enough to walk in the forest or on the streets without the need of artificial light. The opposite of this phenomenon is called the Kaamos in Finland: The polar night.
The dotted line is the arctic circle: Above it there is midnight sun and below it the white nights happen. Source: Wikipedia.
My experience with the white nights
During my last visit to Finland, I wasn’t sure if the area I was going to be in was an area where I could see the white nights.
My location was south of Helsinki’s latitude, more or less the same latitude that Tallin is, and that is very much south of the arctic circle. That’s why I was so surprised to encounter the white nights: I didn’t plan that on my trip.
This is how it happened.
Around 10 p.m. the sun set below the horizon, and kept that position until 12 or 1 a.m., the darkest moment of the night. Then everything became clearer and clearer until we saw the sun again, around 3 to 4 a.m. But the clarity of the sky – and that’s the thing – never left.
The sky was blue and the place where the sun was below the horizon had a fantastic reddish color.
1 a.m.: The darkest moment.
The effect that it had on me it was revitalizing. I wasn’t tired or sleepy. The three nights that I spent on my trip I was awake all “night” and able to see an early sunrise. No surprise: It was Juhannus – the midsummer, something we’ll talk about soon – and there were some parties with lots of friends, a ton of sauna, and a cottage outside the city.
And so we did it each night. Even if during the day it was sometimes cloudy, the evenings and the mornings were clear, and that made the white nights one of the best things of my trip. I can’t wait to see the white nights again.
Have you seen the white nights? What did you think about them?


Tranquility museum is a lunar base from the World of 2001
The expansion of the space powers in the World of 2001 has not come at the expense of preserving important sites of space-heritage. Foremost amongst such sites is the location of the Earth’s first lunar landing , Tranquilty base. Though the Apollo 11 decent stage is fenced off, visitors to the site can approach to close proximity and gaze upon a mounted pictorial history of the Apollo program.
|The World of 2001|
Spacecraft: Aquarius | Aquarius Id | Aries | Bondarenko | Centaur-O | Draco | Gagarin | Herculis | Komarov | Komarov-bis | Merkur | Moonbus | Orion | Patsayev | Polaris 1-XE | Rocketbus | Skorpion | Taurus | Titov V | Titov G
Surface bases: Aberporth | Baikonur | Brest | Canberra | Cape Canaveral | Clavius Base | Cuxhaven | Hainan | Kadena AB | Korolevgrad | Lunar Observatory | Moscow | Phobos Base | Port Lowell | Prime Base | Serenitatis Base | Tchalinko | Tranquility Museum | Tycho | Washington


NUFORC Sighting 173783Occurred: 2023-01-06 03:00 Local
Reported: 2023-01-07 17:31 Pacific
Duration: approx 15 minutes
No of observers: 2
Location: approx 1000 nm north of Kauai Hawaii, CO, USA
Location details: approx 35 deg north, 150 deg west
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object
3 smaller star-like objects moving around a brighter one making rapid speed changes and directions.
I’m a airline B787 pilot. We were flying at 38,000 ft at approx 1015Z over the Pacific about 1000 miles north of Hawaii. The other pilot and I witnessed on several separate instances, 3 or 4 distant and very high altitude lights that looked like stars in the night sky. They would appear out of the darkness in the same spot of the sky, become increasingly bright, and would circle around each other. 2 of them appeared dimmer and smaller than the third, which appeared much brighter. They would accelerate and change directions rapidly at seemingly incredible speeds, then they would fly apart, the brighter one would stop momentarily, and the they would disappear until doing the same thing again a few minutes later. We saw this happen several times. I captured the last “event” on my Ipad video. Approximately 15 minutes after all of this occurred, I noticed what I thought was Venus (which I thought to myself I didn’t see it before as it was blocked by my cockpit window post). As I looked at what I thought was Venus, it appeared to be moving very slowly. Over a matter of seconds it then moved away from us to the south and ultimately dimmed as it moved away and disappeared towards the horizon. Initially when I first saw it, it appeared to be just a stationary planet until it began its movement. This was not the typical motion of a orbital satellite. I’ve subsequently expanded numerous frames of my video, and with a magnifying glass could clearly see a greenish luminescent glow from the trailing edge of the triangular shape of the brightest object. In my video the brightest object made a sudden acceleration straight downward (or away from us), it stopped, then disappeared.
© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.


Congratulations Dr Tristan Moss- Discovery Early Career Researcher Award-2021
Dr Tristan Moss, UNSW, Canberra has won the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award-2021.
This project aims to be the first study to address how Australia has approached space at the public and government level from the dawn of the space age in 1957 to today. Taking a historical approach, this project employs an innovative framework that integrates Australia’s disparate space activities, analyses Australian space over a long time period, and centres the Australian experience within the global context. The project is particularly timely with creation of the Australian Space Agency in mid-2018. Through publications and collaboration with space scholars and stakeholders, this project aims to inform discussion of space policy and international cooperation in space, and develop new understandings of how Australians engage with space.


Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA)
instrument intercepts dust and performs real-time
compositional analysis for transmission back to
Earth. The Stardust CIDA is the same instrument
design that flew on Giotto and two Vega spacecraft,
where it obtained unusual data on the chemical
composition of individual particulates in Halley's
comet. The instrument is located on the underside
of the Stardust spacecraft.
CIDA is a mass spectrometer, which determines
the size of ions by comparing differences in their
flight times. The instrument operates relatively
simply. When a dust particle hits the target of
the nstrument, an electrostatic grid extracts
ions from it. Depending on the polarity of the
target grid, positive or negative ions can be
extracted from the dust. The extracted ions move
through the instrument, are bounced off a reflector,
then read by a detector. Heavier ions take more
time to travel through the instrument than lighter
ones, so the flight times of the ions are used
to calculate their mass.
instrument consists of an inlet, target, ion extractor,
time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometer (MS) and
ion detector. The inlet is baffled to prevent
sunlight from entering and raising the background
noise in the detector. The target was planned
to be a corrugated Ag or other heavy metal material.
It was not necessary to have a moving Ag foil
for the Wild 2 flyby, as was done for the higher
flux at Halley. The target area was increased
to 50 cm2 from the Halley Mission instrument's
5 cm2 target.
During its operation, a light flash, which accompanies
the dust impact on the target, is detected and
used to set the zero for the TOF measurement.
Electrostatic grids extract ions, depending from
the impact microplasma. These ions move down a
bent-tube TOF MS, with an electrostatic reflector
to focus ions of similar energies onto the ion
detector. By measuring their arrival time, the
mass of the ions can be determined. It is expected
that at the 6.1 km/s flyby speed, molecular ions
as well as atomic ions will be important in the
observations. The instrument is sensitive at least
over the range AMU=1 to 150, though sub-micron
sized particles produce observable signals and
compositional profiles too.
use of a recorder mode allow a superior data set
to be collected, than what was possible from the
data-constrained links that were available during
previous PIA flights. Most of this data will be
played back slowly over ensuing days or weeks
after the comet flyby.
The co-investigator in charge of the CIDA is Jochen
Kissel of MPE, the Max-Planck-Institut f. Aeronomie
in Lindau, Finland. The instrument has been developed
and built by von Hoerner & Sulger GmbH in
Schwetzingen, Germany, in close cooperation with
the MPE under contract by the DARA, Deutsche Agentur
f|r Raumfahrtangelegenheiten, Bonn. Software for
the CIDA instrument is being developed by The
Finnish Meterological Institute, Helsinki.
November 26, 2003


"And you may find yourself in another part of the world.
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?'" -Talking Heads
What would you do if you woke up one day, and found yourself in completely unfamiliar surroundings? You don't know what day it is, what year it is, or even where you are.
Is there any way, without any other information, that you could figure out exactly where in the world you were?
We typically describe our location on Earth by two coordinates: a latitude and a longitude. Latitude, your distance (either North or South) from the equator, in degrees, is actually very easy to figure out, assuming you know your astronomy and have some basic measuring tools.
All you have to do is find either the North (or South) Celestial pole, depending on what hemisphere you're in.
Even though the Earth orbits the Sun, traveling a distance of 940 million kilometers a year, all while orbiting on its axis, the North Celestial Pole and South Celestial Pole always appear in the exact same position from any given latitude on Earth.
Look up at the night sky -- on a good, clear night -- and if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, you should be able to see the following.
Along the band of the Milky Way, there's the (true) Southern Cross, which you can tell apart from the false cross by the fifth star in the "left hip" position, as well as the two very bright pointer stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri. Off the band of the Milky Way are two faint but prominent clouds, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, small satellite galaxies over a hundred thousand light years away.
And if you can find these objects in the sky, you should have no problem finding the location of the South Celestial Pole. Here's how.
Draw an imaginary line down the long axis of the cross, and also draw one perpendicular to the two pointer stars. Where those lines intersect is (approximately) the location of the South Celestial Pole.
Want to do a little better? The location of the Pole also makes an equilateral triangle with the two Magellanic Clouds; between these two methods, you should easily be able to locate the South Celestial Pole to less than one degree.
Of course, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, things are even easier.
Because in the Northern Hemisphere, we're fortunate enough to have a bright, prominent Pole Star! Simply follow the last two stars in the Big Dipper's "cup" up to the North Star, and you simply can't miss it.
As the video below shows, the night sky will appear to rotate around the Pole Star, with a period of just under 24 hours, no matter what your location on Earth is.
However many degrees your Celestial Pole is above the horizon is equal to your latitude. So if you're in the Northern Hemisphere and the North Star is 40 degrees above the horizon, your latitude is 40° North. If the Celestial Pole is directly overhead (at 90° above the horizon), then you're exactly at the Pole itself.
So that takes care of latitude. But longitude is a very big problem. Unlike latitude, where different locations actually lead to significant differences in observable phenomena, longitude is arbitrary.
So if you want to measure your longitude, you need some sort of prior knowledge. The easiest way to do it is to identify some place as zero degrees longitude, use what you know about astronomy to calculate when the Sun rises and sets at different latitudes, and then carry a timepiece with you.
And the easiest way to keep accurate time, as Christiaan Huygens discovered in the 17th Century, is with a pendulum clock. At any given location on Earth, an ideal pendulum -- that is, a heavy mass connected to a fixed point by a massless string -- has its period determined solely by two things: the acceleration due to gravity and the length of that pendulum.
Once this was understood, it became relatively straightforward to construct a seconds pendulum, or a pendulum where every swing, from one side to the other, took a time of (practically) exactly one second.
If you have a clock with you, and you know your latitude, and you also know when any astronomical body (i.e., the Sun) should be rising or setting, you can figure out your longitude with no problem at all!
Except, there are two problems with that. The first is that, as you move to different latitudes and elevations on Earth, the acceleration due to gravity changes!
The Earth bulges at the equator and is compressed at the poles due to its rotation, making the acceleration due to gravity slightly larger at higher latitudes and slightly lower closer to the equator. Additionally, higher elevations mean you're farther from the center of the Earth, and so gravity will be slightly higher at sea level and slightly lower at high altitudes.
This has been measured incredibly precisely by today's standards, but this effect has been known (and accounted for) since the 1670s, by Jean Richer. Anyone traveling -- and in possession of this knowledge -- could lengthen or shorten their seconds pendulum slightly, dependent on their latitude and altitude, to keep the period constant. Once you know how to account for changes in gravity, you can calculate your longitude as you move without fear that those effects will throw you off.
But something else happens as you travel, something that is much harder to account for, and virtually impossible to control.
Temperature! As the temperature heats up or cools down, your pendulum will expand or contract; that's what virtually all materials do when you change their temperature!
But that would be terrible for your pendulum! If its length gets shorter, so does the period of one pendulum swing, and if the length gets longer, your swing time lengthens as well. If you don't know to take this into account, unlike the gravimetry problem, above, a plunge into below-freezing temperatures can throw your clocks off by a minute or two per day, where every missed minute means an error in longitude of up to 28 kilometers. (Depending on your latitude.) Since temperatures change all the time, and these errors are cumulative, using a simple pendulum clock could, over the course of a few months, lead to errors in your calculated longitude of thousands of kilometers. All because, as the mesmerizing video below shows, pendulums of different lengths have different periods.
So how, then, could you avoid this problem? How can you overcome the perils of your material expanding/contracting in changing temperatures? How do you keep the length of your pendulum constant?
The answer, discovered not by Newton or Galileo but by the virtual unknown commoner, John Harrison, was simultaneously simple and brilliant. Here's the concept applied to a pendulum.
Use a combination of two different metals in your pendulum! Because different elements expand by different amounts, you can take a material like iron, with a modest coefficient of thermal expansion, and a material like zinc, with a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion; for the purposes of simplicity, let's assume zinc expands three times as much as iron.
Build two parallel iron rods that extend three-quarters of the way down the pendulum, two zinc rods that extend half the original length back up, and one more iron rod that's three-quarters of the original length. Now, attach them together as shown, above, and let the temperature change!
What's going to happen? As the temperature drops, the iron and zinc both contract; the zinc contracts three times as much, but the total iron is three times as long! Since the zinc provides a negative distance but the iron a positive one, they -- in effect -- cancel each other out! If the temperature rises instead, the iron and zinc both expand, with the iron making the pendulum longer and the zinc making it shorter by amounts that, once again, cancel each other out! In other words, the temperature can change to anything it wants, and the overall length of the pendulum will stay the same, insensitive to temperature!
For marine use, you'd have to apply this same concept to the chronometer, as pendula are impractical. For those of you interested in learning a much richer account of this story, I actually have a book to recommend!
So now you know the ease with which you can find your latitudes anywhere, but longitude? That's some hard work, and it takes a reference point to mean anything! Still, how clever and simple is that temperature-compensation trick, to use different elements with different thermal expansion properties in combination, keeping the overall length constant! Thank the stars for heavy elements...
I can find latitude with my eyes closed.
Well, not literally, but without outside information. All I need is my trusty inertial measurement unit with its sensitive accelerometers and gyroscopes. Let it sit still for a few minutes, then the gravity vector and the earth rotation vector will be precise enough that the angle between them will give latitude to reasonable precision.
The history of John Harrison's quest to build a navigational chronometer is a fascinating one. In the end, of course, he abandoned the gravity-driven pendulum and used the spring balance mechanism - also with a variety of ingenious and beautifully-crafted compensating mechanisms.
Before cheap and reliable ship's chronometers, wasn't longitude measured by an accurate measurement of the phase of the moon at its zenith? (The moon phase would provide the "global time" and the moon zenith would provide the "local time").
Bah! Dead reckoning FTW! ;p
Question, though: You said that you need to adjust the length of your pendulum to account for latitude and altitude. How do you measure altitude? (Besides GPS, hehehe...)
I'm guessing you just use a map, where altitudes have already been determined using like surveying equipment or something?
just go to the nearest mall and find the map with the "You are Here" arrow.
You can measure altitude to reasonable accuracy with a barometer. Also, surveying equipment. Believe it or not, the world existed before GPS.
I think GPS corrected the altitude of Everest by 26ft compared to the 1856 measurement. Not too shabby.
Your question states "without any other information" - all of your explanation is based on "other information." So, in answer to your question as posed, no, you could not determine where you are.
With "other information" being allowed, I'd just ask the guy standing next to me what day it was, the year, and where I was.
great post! but i think when contracting the zinc will make the pendulum longer and vice versa
Have to say I struggled through that book Longitude, the writer's 'style' didn't do the story justice at all.
Luckily, I am the kind of man not afraid to ask for directions.


What the hell is he doing shooting set shots from outside the key?
did you see his shoulder blades??? He weighs 160 tops. At 7', that's weak as sh!t!!!! He probably gets pushed around. This will make his game better though. If he can develop the outside game. If he gains size, then your looking at Dirk, or Porzingus.
At 24,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) in length, the TCT — the Trans Canada Trail — will open in 2017 as the planet’s longest “trail” network.
While impressive, we use quotes around trail because upon completion the route will consist of forested paths, canoe routes, urban walkways, streets, logging roads, and secondary highways.
It’s all linked by a huge map, available online. Signage across the country on segments of the trail will connect it all in the real world.
A river as hot as the sun's surface has been flowing beneath our feet — and it's now moving faster.
December 27, 2016, 6:58 p.m.
Just beneath the surface is a molten river running around the Northern Hemisphere. (Photo: Hawaii Volcano Observatory/Wiki Commons)
Scientists have discovered the largest river running through Earth's underworld: a 260-mile wide jet of lava that flows between Canada and Russia that is being driven by our planet's magnetic field, reports New Scientist.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-bp-oil-billion-natural-resources.html#jCp
The first-ever comprehensive appraisal of the financial impact on natural resources impacted by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill found that it did $17.2 billion in damage. Credit: US Coast Guard
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill did $17.2 billion in damage to the natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, a team of scientists recently found after a six-year study of the impact of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
This is the first comprehensive appraisal of the financial value of the natural resources damaged by the 134-million-gallon spill.
For the first time, scientists have detected evidence of a magnetic field that's associated with the vast intergalactic 'bridge' that links our two nearest galactic neighbors. Known as the Magellanic Bridge, the bridge is a huge stream of neutral gas that stretches some 75,000 light-years between our two neighboring galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC). Although researchers had predicted it was there, this is the first observation of its magnetic field, and it could help us understand how these vast bridges come to be.
"There were hints that this magnetic field might exist, but no one had observed it until now," said lead researcher, Jane Kaczmarek from the University of Sydney.
Our closest galactic neighbours, the LMC and SMC (photographed below) are 160,000 and 200,000 light-years from Earth respectively, and are visible in the southern night sky.
ESO/J. ColosimoResearchers have long known about the Magellanic Bridge that exists between these neighbours, a path with a few known stars inside it. But until now, very little was known about the magnetic field associated with the bridge. The team has now shown that this newly detected magnetic field is one millionth the strength of Earth's own protective magnetic shield - and it could provide some insight into how it formed. Two of the leading options are that the magnetic field was generated from within the bridge after the structure formed, or it may have been 'ripped' from the dwarf galaxies thought to have merged and formed the bridge in the first place. If a bridge between the stars sounds a little sci-fi to you, keep in mind that most of space is made up of different magnetic fields.
"Not only are entire galaxies magnetic, but the faint delicate threads joining galaxies are magnetic, too," said one of the researchers, Bryan Gaensler from the University of Toronto.
"Everywhere we look in the sky, we find magnetism."
The reason we've struggled to study this structure in the past is the fact that these types of cosmic magnetic fields can only be observed indirectly through their effect on other structures in space. In this case, radio signals from hundreds of very distant galaxies was used to pick up the magnetic field associated with the Magellanic Bridge. Radio signals can be thought of like waves on the surface of a pond, in that they vibrate along a particular plane in space. When these radio signals pass through a magnetic field, that plane is rotated, and it allows astronomers to the measure the strength and polarity (direction) of the field.
"The radio emission from the distant galaxies served as background 'flashlights' that shine through the Bridge," said Kaczmarek.
"Its magnetic field then changes the polarisation of the radio signal. How the polarised light is changed tells us about the intervening magnetic field."
Now that we've been able to detect the field, scientists now have a chance to figure out not only how it formed, but the impact it's had on the LMC and SMC.
"In general, we don't know how such vast magnetic fields are generated, nor how these large-scale magnetic fields affect galaxy formation and evolution," said Kaczmarek.
"The LMC and SMC are our nearest neighbours, so understanding how they evolve may help us understand how our Milky Way Galaxy will evolve. Understanding the role that magnetic fields play in the evolution of galaxies and their environment is a fundamental question in astronomy that remains to be answered."
Even cooler is the fact that this is just one study that's part of a bigger project to map the entire Universe's magnetism.
In a week of bad news for climate change action, bad news from Antarctica has followed.
The enormous crack on the Larsen C Ice Shelf has taken a sudden change of direction, meaning the creation of one of the biggest ever bergs could happen sooner than expected. Activity between 25 May and 31 May, measured by the European Union's Sentinel-1 satellite, meant the fissure is now just 13km (8 miles) from the edge of the ice.
"The rift has propagated a further 16km, with a significant apparent right turn towards the end, moving the tip 13km from the ice edge," said Prof Adrian Luckman from Swansea University in Wales.
The crack is now around 200km (124 miles) in total length. The recent spurt followed a period of the crack being stationary during which it entered a region of soft, flexible ice known as a "suture" zone. However, May saw renewed activity resulting in the sharp turn towards the ocean.
Part of a highly troubling pattern
If and when a berg is carved, the likelihood is that it will drift away from the ice shelf quite slowly.
"It's unlikely to be fast because the Weddell Sea is full of sea-ice, but it'll certainly be faster than the last few months of gradual parting. It will depend on the currents and winds," explained Prof Luckman.
However, once scientists declare the berg to have separated, the Larsen C shelf will be assessed to have lost 10 percent of its area, making it much less stable. Researchers are concerned that the result will mimic those previously seen on ice shelves Larsen A and Larsen B, where carving events led slowly to them breaking up completely. Although it would take years, a collapse of Larsen C would be a continuation of a pattern seen across the Antarctic Peninsula.
There are a dozen other major ice shelves that have in recent decades either collapsed, retreated or shrunk significantly.
Prof Luckman is working on the MIDAS Project, a UK-based Antarctic research project investigating the effects of a warming climate on the Larsen C ice shelf.