ideas about science and the cosmos
Archive for April, 2010
NASA accident a costly setback.
Apr 29th
The launch of NASA’s Nuclear Compton Telescope in Australia met with a tragic end today when high winds caught the helium balloon carrying the sensitive equipment ripped it from the crane it was anchored on and was dragged along the ground, after hitting an SUV. The NCT is a multimillion dollar observation platform designed to study gamma rays. Gamma rays don’t normally pierce through our atmosphere, so its difficult to study on earth.
If you’re curious, it’s not named after a suburb of L.A., it was named after Arthur Compton, an American physicist who won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the Compton Effect (scattering of X-rays).
Updates coming
Apr 27th
I’ve been spending some of my free time writing some modifications to wordpress so I haven’t been posting as much as usual, but I’ve got some good stuff planned soon.
The pale blue marble
Apr 22nd
‘The blue marble’ is NASA’s most accurate true-color image of the earth to date. The detail is simply stunning. They mapped and stitched every single square mile of the planet to make this image. To get an idea how many different things were involved in the making of this image, look at that huge credit. If your interested in some of the many things NASA has collected, be sure to browse their Visible Earth website.
To celebrate earth day here it is , the place we call home :
Source : http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2429
Credit NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).
First images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory
Apr 21st
NASA released its first public images today from its SDO ( Solar Dynamics Observatory ). The SDO spacecraft was launched on Feb 11th of this year with the purpose of imaging the sun and to help us understand more the relationship the sun has with the earth. The SDO features magnetic imaging, for studying the sun’s magnetic fields, a Helioseismic sensor, for studying pressure waves generated by the sun’s currents of energy, and a ultraviolet & extreme ultraviolet imaging for understanding connections between the variations of magnetic and UV fields. The results of these studies can also help us understand more about solar winds, which create the tails on comets.
The youtube video below shows, with stunning clarity, a prominence eruption, a loop shaped plume of the suns energy. To give you a sense of perspective of the size some of these prominences are, in ’97, SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a spacecraft for observing the Sun) caught on that was 216,000 miles long - 28 times the diameter of the Earth.
Visit : NASA’s Official SDO website
Volcanic lightning on display in Iceland
Apr 20th
The Eyjafjallajokull volcano has been providing more than air traffic problems, it has been giving up a lot of very awesome photos of volcanic lightning. Scientists are still not positive the exact process that creates the vibrantly colored lightning, but it certainly is pretty damn cool.
The Big Picture has 2 excellent galleries of images from the volcano, though not all of them are lightning related (look towards the bottom).
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/icelands_disruptive_volcano.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html
Geology.com has a good article here about the possible causes and ideas behind volcanic lightning : http://geology.com/articles/volcanic-lightning/
Dangers of Science Denial
Apr 19th
Another great video, this one from BadAstronomy which highlights the dangers of science denial, and the road to failure if we choose to pursue a failed understanding of science.
Source : http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/04/18/michael-specter-talks-denialism/
Videos updated
Apr 16th
Took way longer than would be considered pleasant, but I managed to complete a few of the videos I planned to put all in one place. You can see most of them from the drop-down menu.
I haven’t been able to find a good place to see some of these series I’m putting together, so I felt it’d be a good time to put them together in one place, no need to hunt around for series.
I’m planning on adding more, so feel free to suggest any you think I should add that is embeddable.
Massive fireball lights up midwestern states’ sky
Apr 15th
We are currently experiencing a meteor shower called Gamma Virginids that occurs from April 4 to April 21, with peak activity expected on Wednesday and Thursday. Lets just be glad it didn’t hit the ground.
CNN has some great video footage of it.
If your curious about other objects which may be making their way into our atmosphere , NASA keeps track of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA’s) here : http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/.
How much would you pay for the universe?
Apr 15th
Niel deGrasse Tyson goes excellently explains why he feels we need to push the frontiers of exploration and why it’s important to sometimes look up.
Source : http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/04/14/neil-tyson-sounds-off-nasa/
Yes, these people exist.
Apr 14th
It may baffle you to learn that people like this… do exist. Albeit, not in great numbers, but it astonishes me that people like this can still function in the modern world.
The Flat Earth Society
Aim: To carefully observe, think freely, rediscover forgotten fact and oppose theoretical dogmatic assumptions. To help establish the United States…of the world on this flat earth. Replace the science religion…with SANITY.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/
Gosh just imagine if we had even 1 single piece of evidence , like a picture of some sort, we could show them to help bring them to their senses. I presume we’ll never know with the government cover-up!
The really interesting thing you can see here is the rhetoric of a fideist (one who believes faith is superior at arriving at particular truths). You’ll see some very similarly worded phrases and appeals to things such as anti-vax’ers, creationists / ID Proponents and others who insist they have the answers, and not vast bodies of verifiable science. I’ve tried to verify that this wasn’t one big joke, but as best I can deduct so far, there are still a few who seriously and wholeheartedly agree.
At least they used a readable font size unlike our friend at http://timecube.com/.