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First human-made object to land on another planet
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The Soviet-built space probe, Venera 3, was the first spacecraft to ever land on another planet back on March 1 st, 1966, after being launched on November 16, 1965 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The mission of this spacecraft was to land on the Venusian surface. The entry body contained a radio communication system, scientific instruments, electrical power sources, and medallions bearing the State Coat of Arms of the U.S.S.R. Unfortunately, the probe crash-landed on Venus, causing its communication systems to fail before it could return any information about the planet. The spacecraft impacted on the night side of Venus, near the terminator, around -20º to 20º N, 60º to 80º E. The Venera program, however, would go on to successfully submit data f ...
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2281 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
Golf is one of only two sports to have been played on the moon
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46 years ago, Alan Shepard pulled out a makeshift six-iron he smuggled on board Apollo 14 and hit two golf balls on the lunar surface, becoming the first - and only - person to play golf anywhere other than Earth. With little atmosphere and much lower gravity, golf balls on the moon travel much farther than on the earth. Alan attributes his shot of nearly 200 yards to this fact alone. The other sport played was javelin. ...
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6697 |
duddy |
6 years ago |
Would you fly to space if you could?
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The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has just awarded Virginal Galactic their first operating license, allowing them to start using their SpaceShipTwo craft for commercial use - as soon as certain guidelines are met. This means that the company - owned by billionaire Richard Branson - will soon be able to shuttle paying passengers into space. Other than making the flights legal, the license dictates the conditions required before Virgin Galactic can actually let any passengers on board SpaceShipTwo, which will be carried by White Knight Two (below) roughly 99 kilometres (62 miles) into the sky. Once everything is squared away with the FAA, SpaceShipTwo - a spacecraft designed to hold two pilots and six passengers - will hitch a ride w ...
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2666 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
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20560 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Pluto up-close
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Taken from a range of just 17 000 km, these images were snapped during the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto, from its flyby of the dwarf planet in July this year. They document an 80-kilometre strip of the planet's surface, offering an intimate perspective of its cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains. The photos scan from Pluto's jagged horizon about 800 kilometres north-west of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, over the shoreline of Sputnik, and across its icy plains. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-05/new-pluto-close-ups-to-help-nasa-piece-together-planets-history/7004516 ...
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17362 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
A closer look at Saturn's moon
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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft completed the first of three final flybys of Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus. On October 14, Cassini passed within 1838 kilometers (1142 miles) of Enceladus, providing unprecedented views of the moon’s north polar region. What's more, researchers predict that is contains a global ocean lying beneath its icy crust. Researchers found the magnitude of the moon's very slight wobble, as it orbits Saturn, can only be accounted for if its outer ice shell is not frozen solid to its interior, meaning a global ocean must be present. ...
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3419 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Definitive proof of water found on Mars
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Since its discovery in 2010, researchers have been trying to solve the mystery of dark streaks that appear and disappear seasonally on the planet's surface (shown above). Scientists are now claiming that this phenomenon, known as the recurring slope lineae, is caused by a bath of saltwater. What is still unknown, however, is where the water is coming from, or if the chemistry is even right for supporting life.
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19311 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Images of Pluto!
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The images, taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft from a distance of 18,000 kilometres give Pluto a "strangely Arctic look", NASA scientists said.
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18963 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
This man was paid $18 000 by NASA to lie on his back for 70 days straight
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The study, titled "CFT 70 ( Countermeasure and Functional Testing in Head-Down Tilt Bed Rest Study)," aimed to learn more about how human bone and muscle might deteriorate in space. According to Drew Iwanicki, who took part in the study and who is pictured above, he experienced some serious headaches because of increased blood pressure to his head. His spine went through some serious pain, and staying horizontal was difficult. However, as soon as the bed was tilted to the vertical position, after 70 days of course, his legs felt heavier and his heart started to beat at 150 BPMs. ...
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13161 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
The quest to find Earth-like life on Mars
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NASA scientists have nominated eight potential new targets for a 2020 Mars mission. They're focusing on ancient river deltas and hot springs as sites that have the best chance of preserving signs of life on the red planet. New sites can still be considered, and mission engineers have yet to weigh in on the technical feasibility of landing the rover in the nominated sites.
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1187 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Here's what 83 times optical zoom can do
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Watch the Nikon Coolpix p900 camera zoom into the moon. This is the first bridge camera on the market with an 83x optical zoom, and it sure is something. It also includes a digital zoom, which reaches to 166x, or 4,000 mm. What is the difference between optical and digital zoom?An optical zoom is a true zoom lens, like the zoom lens you’d use on a film camera. They produce much better-quality images. Some cameras offer a digital zoom, which is simply some in-camera image processing. When you use a digital zoom, the camera enlarges the image area at the center of the frame and trims away the outside edges of the picture. The result is the same as when you open an image in your photo-editing program, crop away the edges of the picture, and t ...
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9072 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
NASA Spacecraft is 4 weeks and 32 million km away from Pluto
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After a journey spanning nine years and almost 5 billion kilometres, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is closer than ever to everyone’s favourite former planet, Pluto. On 14 July 2015, New Horizons is expected to fly within 12,000 km of the lonely cosmic body - about the distance between Seattle and Sydney - zooming through the orbits of its five tiny moons.
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1261 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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18146 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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2 |
21126 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Rockets of the world
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No, we're not referring to the candy. Humanity has done great! Here's a more intricate version of the poster above. It was created by professor Peter Alway and was published in the book Rockets of the World: ...
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13745 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
She developed the building blocks for modern 'software engineering'
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Margaret Hamilton was the leader of the team that developed the flight software for the agency's Apollo missions. The concepts she and her team created became the building blocks for modern 'software engineering.' One example of the value of Hamilton's software work occurred during the Apollo 11 mission. Approximately three minutes before Eagle's touchdown on the moon, the software over rode a command to switch the flight computer's priority processing to a radar system whose 'on' switch had been manually activated due to a faulty written operations script provided to the crew. The action by the software permitted the mission to safely continue. Source: http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11Hamilton.html ...
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20981 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
We are the stars, we are the universe
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I'd like to share this mind-opening video. Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer. By far, one of the best...
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4496 |
ehd123 |
9 years ago |
Rosetta's Comet - Update
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Remember Philae? That little lander that was targeting comet Rosetta? https://biology-forums.com/index.php?article=1050It was very big news around two months ago... Sadly, Philae landed incorrectly in a rather awkward position due to technical failings. After all, it was trying to land on the harsh, unstable, deteriorating/burning up surface of a comet. It bounced three times to a site away from the targeted position and ended up in a shady place with insufficient sunlight to recharge its energy reserves. And so it died out after 60 hours of touchdown. Recent tabloids have now reported that Philae is missing! Scientists from the European Space Agency have tried to analyze the images that Philae returned but things just keep on getting more ...
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13007 |
ehd123 |
9 years ago |
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5975 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
What a flame looks like in microgravity
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Flames look a little different in space. On Earth, gravity causes a candle flame to be teardrop-shaped, and carries soot to the flame's tip, making it yellow. In microgravity, where these forces are absent, the flame is spherical, soot-free, and blue.
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3553 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Let's go to Planet George
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"George" was named by it's discoverer in honour of George III. It wasn't popular and Uranus, the father of Saturn in Roman mythology, was eventually settled upon.
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12537 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Finally, we are going back to the moon!
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For all those doubters out there, this one is for you. Lunar Mission One, which was announced today at the Royal Society in London, will be the UK’s first trip to the moon. It’s an exploratory robotic mission that hopes to see a probe land on the moon’s South Pole within the next ten years, should funding allow. The aim of the venture is to drill through the surface, reaching a depth of at least 20 meters, but perhaps as deep as 100 meters. By analyzing this 4.5 billion year old rock that has been shielded from cosmic radiation and meteor bombardment, scientists hope to increase our understanding of the origins and evolution of the moon, solar system and even our planet. Furthermore, it should also inform us of the practicality of a permanent ...
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6571 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This blind bird's eyes look like miniature galaxies
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This is Zeus, a blind Western Screech Owl whose eyes look like forming galaxies. The stellar effect is likely caused by chunky vitreous strands in his eyes. The handsome owl was found injured in Southern California and now lives at the Wildlife Learning Centre in Los Angeles.
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5987 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Rosetta's Comet
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Two days ago, I streamed history being made for the first time ever online, and witnessed the Philae lander's touchdown on Rosetta's comet. The journey took 10 years, 6.4 billion kms away from here, and a 7 hour long landing. Unfortunately, it was an awkward landing where Philae landed approximately 1km away from its intended landing site that currently, one of its 3 legs is not on the surface of the comet and it itself is oriented in a way that no sufficient sunlight is being recieved enough to charge its batteries ever 12 hour rotation. At the moment, plans to try to "hop" the robot back into a position for enough sunlight are being studied, hopefully in time to execute them before Philae dies out sometime between next Friday and Saturday. ...
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6608 |
ehd123 |
9 years ago |
World's largest vacuum
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See what happens when scientists drop a bowling ball and a feather in the world's largest vacuum; for the science-illiterate viewers out there (sorry ), a vacuum is a space entirely devoid of matter (also known as an absolute vacuum). A lot of you probably already know how this one ends, but that doesn't make watching it play out any less spectacular. ...
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6624 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
From the Earth to the Moon
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Did you know that you could fit all the planets of the Solar System into the distance between the Earth and the Moon? But please don't - it would kill us all.
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4606 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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10138 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
India's full-disk image of Mars
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This is a full-disk image of Mars, showing nearly an entire hemisphere of the Red Planet. It was captured this week by India's Mars Orbiter Mission and shows a storm brewing in the north (around the 11 o'clock position).
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7352 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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5747 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This is a full-color image of the surface of a comet
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Desolate, frozen and black as coal - welcome to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This is one of the closest colour images ever of a comet, taken from just 29 kilometres away by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta will soon land on this rugged surface.
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3648 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
More water on Europa than on Earth
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Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is a prime candidate for life in our solar system beyond Earth. It contains water and is also the only known solar system body to have plate tectonics.
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1 |
4493 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Stalking the sun
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This image, released by NASA a few days ago, overlays a year's worth of photographs of the Sun, revealing the migration of active regions towards the equator.
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9307 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Become an astrobrewologist
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Launched into orbit three years ago, a vial of Scotland's 'space whisky' is due home so researchers can see how the conditions in space affect flavour. This is one small step for man, one giant leap for whisky.
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6219 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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6554 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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3 |
5791 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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2 |
3100 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
The moon isn't round
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Although it may look perfectly round from Earth, the Moon isn’t a sphere. New research suggests that because of the way it was formed it’s more like a lemon, with a bulge in the middle.
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1107 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Does it rain in the Sun?
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Physicists have figured out how colossal rainstorms are formed in the Sun's atmosphere, and it's surprisingly similar to how we get our rain. It turns out that plasma rain falls on the sun at 200 000 km/h. Each raindrop is the size of Ireland!
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4599 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
NASA Rover finds conditions once suited for ancient life on Mars
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Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- some of the key chemical ingredients for life -- in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month.
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2011 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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3975 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
What if the moon was closer... a lot closer?
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What would happen if the Moon orbited at the same distance as the International Space Station? An animator has created a mind-blowing video of what it would look like:
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2703 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Earth-rise from the moon
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This is a breathtaking 'earthrise' viewed from the surface of the moon. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter sees the Earth rise 12 times a day but is usually so busy imaging the moon's surface it doesn't get to capture the moment. This colourised image was taken on 1 February 2014.
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2383 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Did humans really step-foot on the moon?
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This is not an illusion or some kind of sci-fi illustration. It's an actual laser beam, being shot at the eclipsed Moon on the 15 April 2014. The laser's target is the Apollo 15 retroreflector, which was left on the Moon by astronauts in 1971.
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2 |
3158 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This moon looks like a ball of cheese
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The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. Taken by the Galileo spacecraft, this image shows Jupiter's moon, Io, and its incredibly bright colours derived from sulphur and molten silicate rock. Io is covered in volcanoes that are so active, they effectively turn the whole moon inside out. And some of Io's volcanic lava is so hot, it glows in the dark.
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2553 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
How planet Earth looks like from Mars
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This is the first image taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover of what Earth looks like from its station on Mars. Not one to let a golden social media moment go to waste, Curiosity promptly tweeted: “Look Back in Wonder… My first picture of Earth from the surface of Mars."
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2784 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Solar panels on the moon could one day power Earth
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Architectural and engineering firm Shimizu plans to solve Earth's climate crisis by building a band of solar panels 400 kilometres wide along the entire 11,000-kilometre equator of the Moon. The energy generated will be beamed back to Earth in the form of microwaves and converted into electricity at ground stations. The team hopes to start building the "Luna Ring" from Moon materials in 2035.
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7367 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Congratulations, China!
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Chang’e-3 and the lunar rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) landed on the lunar surface on December 14 at about 1:11 pm UTC. This is the first successful landing on the moon by any spacecraft in more than 30 years.
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3 |
8678 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Are the laws of physics the same everywhere on Earth?
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The vortex is a spherical field of force, or a magnetic disturbance. The vortex is 165 feet in diameter and sits half way above ground and half below. The disturbance, or vortex causes unexplainable changes in perception, causing naturally occurring visual and perceptual phenomena that has been caught on film many times. Within the spherical distortion, people stand at an angle. The disturbance alters your relative gravity, causing you to stand at an angle of varying degrees. It is not possible for someone to stand vertical inside the vortex. It will also make someone who is walking away, seem taller, or shorter depending on where you stand. Balls roll uphill, brooms stand straight up and down on their own, and chairs appear to be held up b ...
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1 |
6577 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Getting paid to sleep
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These are the ‘pillownauts,’ and they just got out of bed for the first time in 21 days. The paid volunteers for the European Space Agency laid with their feet up in a medical facility while scientists poked and prodded them to try to understand the effects of spaceflight on astronauts’ bodies. One of the subjects who took part in this investigation said: “The first days of each session were the worst. The body needs to adapt and I had migraines and backaches."
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3 |
7859 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Aurora borealis
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This picture of a green and red aurora was taken on September 26, 2013, from the International Space Station. The colours of the aurora borealis depend on which atoms the solar storm excites. Green auroras appear when charged particles from the solar wind crash with oxygen atoms in Earth’s atmosphere and produce green photons; red auroras occur when the particles collide with nitrogen atoms or when there are lower-energy oxygen collisions, producing red photons.
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2581 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Will the Big Bang be a thing of the past?
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Cosmologists have formulated a new theory that suggest the universe didn’t start with the Big Bang. They believe the birth of the universe happened after a 4D star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris, which helps explain why the universe has an almost uniform temperature.
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3069 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A cratered inferno
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Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. Mercury's diameter is about 4800 km, while the Moon's is slightly less at about 3500 km (compared with about 12,700 km for the Earth). But Mercury is unique in many ways. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at about 1/3 the radius of the Earth's orbit. As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius to an unbearably hot 400 degrees Celsius. The place nearest the Sun in Mercury's orbit changes slightly each orbit - a fact used by Albert Einstein to help verify the correctness of his then newly discovered theory of gravity: General Relativity. The above picture was taken by the only sp ...
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2707 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Simulating Mars in Northern Canada
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A manned mission to Mars will inevitably consist of a few people living in incredibly close quarters in a constantly stressful environment. Starting next summer, Mars Society will be conducting a mock Mars mission in the Canadian Arctic. Six participants will live in a facility 7.6 meters tall (25 feet) and 8.3 meters wide (27 feet). For one full year, they will perform a great deal of geological experiments similar to work that would be done on Mars. Spacesuits will be worn to help simulate Mars-like conditions. Though similar studies have been done in the past, this is the most stressful and will be more true to actual conditions on Mars. The goal of the experiment is to determine leadership structure and what equipment will be necessary. ...
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2860 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Imagine being inside this hurricane
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This fantastic photograph of a hurricane on Saturn was recently snapped by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. It measures an astonishing 2,000 kilometers across the eye - that's big enough to cover the UK twelve times. Wind speeds reach as fast as 150 meters per second.
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3065 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Dwarf planets
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Not much of a believer in dwarf planets, but here's a cool schematic of some. In 2006 the organization responsible for classifying celestial bodies, the International Astronomical Union, decided that a new class of objects was needed. The solar system's erratic ninth planet, Pluto, was assigned to the new “dwarf planet” category along with four other bodies, all tinier than Earth’s moon. Some astronomers expect there may be as many as 50 dwarf planets in the solar system. Eris, the largest dwarf planet, is only slightly bigger than Pluto, at 1,445 miles in diameter (2,326 km). Discovered in 2003, Eris orbits at an average distance of 68 AU (that is, 68 times the Earth’s distance from the sun) and takes 561.4 Earth years to circle the sun. E ...
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3348 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3237 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3141 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
How big is the international space station?
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"The ISS is the largest man made object in space. Here's how it compares to other notable objects, both real and fictional, all drawn to scale."The ISS isn't just the largest space craft ever built, it's also the world's most expensive object. According the Government Accountability Office, it cost upwards of 100 billion dollars to complete.
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3440 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Asteriod impacts
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The third largest asteroid to ever hit earth has been found in South Australia. According to scientists involved, the asteroid, which measured up to 20 km across, hit Earth approximately 360 million years ago. This was around the time of the Late Devonian mass extinction, strengthening the idea that asteroid impacts have been associated with many mass extinctions throughout the history of life on Earth.
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7297 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
The infant stages of of forming a black hole
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This is supernova remnant W49B. It is located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, and as we see it it is approximately 1,000 years old. Compared to other supernova remnants of similar type and age, it is distorted in an usual way. Astronomers believe that it is distorted because it is in the infant stages of of forming a black hole -- the very first time this has been observed.
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4071 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Capturing an asteroid
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According to scientists at The Keck Institute for Space Studies in California, NASA is seriously considering capturing an asteroid to put in a high orbit around the moon. If the idea is implemented, we could be looking at a manned mission to "capture" an asteroid in the 2020s. This idea is thought to tie in with the Obama administration's enthusiasm for sending a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid. If NASA were able to capture an object and lock it into an orbit around the moon, it could be safely used as a practise mission without the need for astronauts to move beyond the range of a rescue mission. ...
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11882 |
duddy |
11 years ago |