 CAPE CANAVERAL: A NASA satellite was hoisted aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday in preparation for launch next week on an unprecedented mission to the heart of Jupiter.The robotic probe called Juno is scheduled to spend one year cycling inside Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, far closer than any previous orbiting spacecraft, to learn how much water the giant planet holds, what triggers its vast magnetic fields and whether a solid core lies beneath its dense, hot atmosphere. "Jupiter holds a lot of key secrets about how we formed," said lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Scientists believe Jupiter was the first planet to form after the birth of the sun, though exactly how that happened is unknown. One key piece of missing data is how much water is inside the giant planet, which circles the sun five times farther away than Earth. Jupiter, like the sun, is comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium, with a sprinkling of other elements, like oxygen. Scientists believe the oxygen is bound with hydrogen to form water, which can be measured by microwave sounders, one of eight science instruments on Juno. Jupiter's water content is directly tied to where - and how -- the planet formed. Some evidence points to a planet that grew in the colder nether-regions of the solar system and then migrated inward. Other computer models show Jupiter formed at about its present location by accumulating ancient icy snowballs. LARGER THAN SISTER PLANETS However it grew, Jupiter ended up with a mass more than twice all its sister planets combined, giving it the gravitational muscle to hang on to nearly all of its original building materials. "That's why it's very interesting to us if we want to go back in time and understand where we came from and how the planets were made" -- which Juno can help NASA do, Bolton said. Juno's journey to Jupiter will take five years. Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno will thread itself into a narrow region between the planet and the inner edge of its radiation belt. The solar-powered probe will then spend a year orbiting over Jupiter's poles, coming as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above its cloud tops. Only an atmospheric probe released by Galileo, NASA's last Jupiter spacecraft, has come closer, though that spacecraft was able to relay data for only 58 seconds before succumbing to the planet's crushing pressure and intense heat. Juno's electronic heart is protected in a vault of titanium, but it too will fall to the harsh Jovian radiation environment after about a year. Juno's last move will be to dive into the planet's atmosphere to avoid any chance of contaminating Jupiter's potentially life-bearing moons. Juno's launch is scheduled for Aug. 5. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Colorado. The mission, the second in NASA's lower-cost, quick-turnaround New Frontiers planetary expeditions, will cost $1.1 billion. (Reuters) |
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
NASA probe poised for launch to Jupiter
UAE Sheikh’s name in sand visible from space
 ABU DHABI: The name of Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Ahyan, a super-rich Arab sheikh who is the president of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, written on the sand so large that can be seen from the space. On a sandy island Sheikh Hamad has inscribed what is in effect the biggest graffiti tag the world has ever seen. The letters were crafted by a crew who worked for weeks to create them. The inscription measures half a mile high and two miles long--and the letters are dug so deep that they form waterways. His moniker is so big it can be seen from space. The tip of the “H” reaches into the strait that leads to the Arabian Gulf, allowing Hamad to fill the first two letters of his name with water. The “M” looks partially filled as well. The island that “Hamad” has been inscribed on, Al Futaisi, is said to be entirely owned by the Sheikh and contains resorts, a golf course and horse stables. | ||
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With space shuttle era over, US robot set for Mars
 WASHINGTON: NASA moved on to a new chapter in space exploration on Friday, a day after the end of its shuttle program, by announcing details of plans to determine if Mars has or ever had the ingredients for life.Managers at the U.S. space agency said a robotic science laboratory, being prepared for a November 25 launch, will land in August 2012 near a mountain in a crater on the planet most like Earth in the solar system. NASA announced which crater it has picked for the 2.5 billion dollar Mars rover, Curiosity, to probe for signs of life when the unmanned vehicle is lowered onto the red planet next year. The six-wheeled mechanical science lab will explore a crater called Gale, which contains a mountain and will help scientists study clay and sulfate deposits at various heights. "Scientists identified Gale as their top choice to pursue the ambitious goals of this new rover mission," said Jim Green, director for the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The site offers a visually dramatic landscape and also great potential for significant science findings." The unchosen option was a crater called Eberswalde, a clay-bearing site where a river once flowed into a lake. No one expects the rover, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), to actually find living beings there, just signs that that some microbial life may have existed in the depths of a crater that may have contained water. NASA has previously sent the Spirit and Opportunity rovers to explore Mars and has set its sights on sending humans there by 2030. The launch of Curiosity is set for later this year, with its arrival expected in August 2012. Since it is larger than previous rovers, the car-sized vehicle will be lowered onto Mars with the help of a rocket-powered sky crane. The announcement of Curiosity's exact destination came 35 years after the first spacecraft, the Viking 1, landed on Mars in July 1976. |
10 Interesting Things about Robots
Robot
1. “Robot” has derived from the Czech word “robota”, which means “drudgery”. At first it was seen in the play Rossum’s Universal Robots in the year 1921.2. The case of a first robot homicide took place in the year 1981. It was the first case which is known to us. In the incident a factory worker of Japanese Kawasaki was crushed by a robotic arm.
3. Nowadays there are millions of industrial robots are in use and about half of them are in Japan alone.
4. In the year 1495, Leonardo da Vinci had also drawn plans of a shielded humanoid machine.
5. PackBot’s is a manufacturer of iRobot which was already sold over two million Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, which also has an environment sensing techniques available in it.
6. There is a report that the Taliban fighters of Afghanistan have used ladders in order to turn over and disarmed the military robots which was being sent to check out their caves.
7. Elektro is the first humanoid robot in the world which was debuted in the year 1939. It was created by the Westinghouse. It was 7 foot in height and was able walk and speaks. It spokes over seven hundred words which was stored in it.
8. Chris Melhuish from Bristol Robotics Lab has created a robot which can use fuel calls with bacteria in order to obtain electricity from the objects like the dead flies and the rotten apples. The main goal behind this was that robots could seek the need of their own food.
9. Well, hold your breath now!! There is news that the great robotics expert named Henrik Christensen is predicting that humans can have sex with the robots in four years time. Isn’t this interesting?
10. A group of Australian researchers are finding a way to build up a micro robot that could perform the same swim stroke which is used by E. coli bacteria. The main goal behind this is that if it becomes successful, it will be very much helpful in taking a biopsy of the human body parts.
Written By: “Renee”
Interesting Facts About the Universe
WMAP 5 year full sky
So you think you know your universe? We’ve got our own top 10 list on the most interesting facts about the Universe.
1. It was hot when it was young
The most widely accepted cosmological model is that of the Big Bang. This was proven since the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation or CMBR. Although, strictly speaking, no one knows exactly what ‘banged’, we know from extrapolation that the Universe was infinitely hot at birth, cooling down as it expanded.
In fact, even only within minutes of expansion, scientists predict its temperature to have been about a billion Kelvin. Moving backward to 1 second, it is said to have been at 10 billion Kelvin. For comparison, today’s universe is found to have an average temperature of only 2.725 Kelvin.
2. It will be cold when it grows old
Observations made especially on galaxies farthest from us show that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. This, and data that show that the Universe is cooling allows us to believe that the most probable ending for our universe is that of a Big Freeze.
That is, it will be devoid of any usable heat (energy). It is due to this prediction that the Big Freeze is also known as the Heat Death.Accurate measurements made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) on the current geometry and density of the Universe favor such an ending.
3. The Universe spans a diameter of over 150 billion light years
Current estimates as with regards to the size of the Universe pegs it at a width of 150 billionlight years. Although it may seem peculiarly inconsistent with the age of the Universe, which you’ll read about next, this value is easily understood once you consider the fact that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.
4. The Universe is 13.7 billion years old
If you think that is amazing, perhaps equally remarkable is the fact that we know this to better than 1% precision. Credit goes to the WMAP team for gathering all the information needed to come up with this number. The information is based on measurements made on the CMBR.
Older methods which have contributed to confirming this value include measurements of the abundances of certain radioactive nuclei. Observations made on globular clusters, which contain the oldest stars, have also pointed to values close to this.
5. The Earth is not flat – but the Universe is
Based on Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, there are three possible shapes that the Universe may take: open, closed, and flat. Once again, measurements by WMAP on the CMBR have revealed a monumental confirmation – the Universe is flat.
Combining this geometry and the idea of an invisible entity known as dark energy coincides with the widely accepted ultimate fate of our universe, which as stated earlier, is a Big Freeze.
6. Large Scale Structures of the Universe
Considering only the largest structures, the Universe is made up of filaments, voids, superclusters, and galaxy groups and clusters. By combining galaxy groups and clusters, we come up with superclusters. Some superclusters in turn form part of walls, which are also parts of filaments.
The vast empty spaces are known as voids. That the Universe is clumped together in certain parts and empty in others is consistent with measurements of the CMBR that show slight variations in temperature during its earliest stages of development.
7. A huge chunk of it is made up of things we can’t see
Different wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum such as those of radio waves, infrared, x-rays, and visible light have allowed us to peer into the cosmos and ‘see’ huge portions of it. Unfortunately, an even larger portion cannot be seen by any of these frequencies.
And yet, certain phenomena such as gravitational lensing, temperature distributions, orbital velocities and rotational speeds of galaxies, and all others that are evidence of a missing mass justify their probable existence. Specifically, these observations show that dark matter exists. Another invisible entity known as dark energy, is believed to be the reason why galaxies are speeding away at an accelerated rate.
8. There is no such thing as the Universe’s center
Nope. The earth is not the center of the Universe. It’s not even the center of the galaxy. And no again, our galaxy is not the entire universe, neither is it the center. Don’t hold your breath but the Universe has no center. Every galaxy is expanding away from one another.
9. Its members are in a hurry to be as far away from each other as possible
The members that we are talking about are the galaxies. As mentioned earlier, they are rushing away from each other at increasing rates. In fact, prior to the findings of most recently gathered data, it was believed that the Universe might end in a Big Rip. That is, everything, down to the atoms, would be ripped apart.
This idea stemmed from this observed accelerated rate of expansion. Scientists who supported this radically catastrophic ending believed that this kind of expansion would go on forever, and thus would force everything to be ripped apart.
10. To gain a deeper understanding of it, we need to study structures smaller than the atom
Ever since cosmologists started to trace events backward in time based on the Big Bang model, their views, which focused only on the very large, got smaller and smaller. They knew, that by extrapolating backward, they would be led into a universe that was very hot, very dense, very tiny, and governed by extremely high energies.
These conditions were definitely within the realm of particle physics, or the study of the very small. Hence, the most recent studies of both cosmology and particle physics saw an inevitable marriage between the two.
There you have it. Feel free to come up with a longer list of your own.
