August 2008 - Posts
NASA / JPL-Caltech / UA / TAMU |
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The Surface Stereo Imager on Phoenix Mars Lander sent back this view of the
probe's workspace in Mars' north polar region at the mission's 90-day mark. Click
on the image for a larger view from the Phoenix imaging team.
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Looking for the latest, greatest, biggest pictures from the Red Planet and other celestial hot spots? We've got 'em right here - starting with some fresh views of the Phoenix Mars Lander's excavations and the Opportunity rover's climb-out from the biggest crater it's visited.
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EMC2 Fusion |
A test plasma in the WB-7
experimental reactor.
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Researchers have finished the first phase of an unorthodox, low-cost nuclear fusion experiment that has generated a megawatt's worth of buzz on the Internet – and they are now waiting for a verdict from their federal funders on whether to proceed to the next phase.
Richard Nebel, leader of the research team at EMC2 Fusion in New Mexico, declined to detail the results of the project, saying that was up to the people paying the bills. But he did said “we have had some success" in the effort to reproduce the promising results reported by the late physicist Robert Bussard.
"It's kind of a mix," he said.
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Mike D'Angelo / Rocket Racing League ® |
Click for video: Watch the Armadillo-powered
rocket plane take off for a test flight in Oklahoma.
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Less than a month after its public debut, the Rocket Racing League is putting a bigger, more powerful prototype plane through its first flight tests - and the results are so impressive that the craft's rocket engine will be adopted as the standard for another five racers, the league's chief executive officer says.
"Everything was exactly as we had drawn it out," CEO and league co-founder Granger Whitelaw reported from Burns Flat, Okla., where the second-generation plane had its first outing on Monday.
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Alachua Astronomy Club |
E-mail messages perpetuate the
annual August myth that Mars can
look as big as the full moon.
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Does anyone still believe that Mars will look as big as the moon this week? Every year, some folks find a forwarded message in their in-box claiming that on Aug. 27, Mars will be as close as it will ever get until the year 2287. That's totally false, and if you were to go outside expecting a monster Mars tonight, you'd be gravely disappointed. But the funny thing is that there's a germ of truth to the "Great Mars Hoax" - and that it's still worth checking out the night sky.
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LHCb Collaboration / CERN |
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This computerized diagram shows the tracks of subatomic particles moving through
part of the Large Hadron Collider's LHCb detector during this weekend's test.
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Europe's CERN particle-physics lab says the countdown to the startup of the world's biggest atom-smasher in two weeks is proceeding "without a hitch."
Well, almost.
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CfA / NASA / JPL-Caltech |
The team behind NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is celebrating the orbiting observatory's fifth birthday with a glittering, multigenerational picture of a star-forming region.
The new infrared view of the W5 region in the constellation Cassiopeia was unveiled today at Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory as part of a celebration marking five years since Spitzer's launch in 2003. The view takes in an area of the sky equivalent to four full moons, 6,500 light-years from Earth, in one of our Milky Way's most picturesque stellar nurseries.
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Just how rare are four-eared cats like this week's celebri-kitty, Yoda? Rare enough to create an Internet sensation ... but common enough to have been a subject of research for more than a half-century. You'll find everything you wanted to know about feline four-earedness (and even no-earedness) at the "Feline Medical Curiosities" Web site.
The four-ear trait affects only the outer ear flaps, or pinnae, and not the inner-ear mechanism. It's thought to be a recessive trait, manifesting itself only when the kitten inherits a rare genetic mutation from both sides of the family.
Having extra flaps wouldn't enhance hearing - in fact, it could be a handicap, which might explain why cats with the trait have generally lost out in the survival-of-the-fittest race. Some of the genes that lead to four-earedness may also play a role in other, more serious deformities that would kill the curious-looking cats before they were born. (That was the thrust of the 1957 research paper in the Journal of Heredity.)
Cats aren't the only critters that can go four-eared: Here's a video of a four-eared rabbit that was spotted last year in Bakersfield, Calif.
For decades, such sensations could be seen (often preserved in formaldehyde) in curiosity shops and museums, sitting alongside the five-legged calves. And lest we forget, there are the two-faced kittens as well as genetically engineered cats that glow. It just goes to show that the Internet has become a curiosity shop for the 21st century.
For more curiosities, check out our roundup of the animal world's top 10 oddballs.
AP file |
Undecided voters may not
actually be all that
undecided, scientists say.
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Scientists say a five-minute computer test could help pollsters figure out which way undecided voters will go, even before the voters themselves know.
The test got a successful tryout in a study discussed this week in the journal Science, and one of the researchers behind the experiment said similar studies will likely be conducted during this fall's presidential campaign.
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FAA |
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George Nield, the Federal Aviation Administration's associate
administrator for commercial space transportation, pays a visit to the
SpaceShipOne rocket plane at the National Air and Space Museum.
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The Federal Aviation Administration celebrates its 50th birthday this week, but don't expect George Nield to be counting the candles on the cake. As the agency's associate administrator for commercial space transportation, Nield prefers to look forward rather than backward. One of his favorite topics is what he calls a new era in spaceflight - an era that includes a bigger role for America's "other" space agency.
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CERN |
A simulation shows the
pattern of particles that
could be produced by a
microscopic black hole.
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Preparations for starting up the world's largest atom-smasher on Sept. 10 are proceeding smoothly, but the legal tussle over whether it should be stopped is facing new twists. Look for Nobel laureates and diplomats to weigh in as a key federal court hearing nears.
The hearing is scheduled to begin in Hawaii on Sept. 2, just a week before the official startup of Europe's Large Hadron Collider. U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor will consider whether to dismiss a civil lawsuit claiming that the machine could destroy the world.
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The bad news about last week's Bigfoot news is that, by all appearances, the claims about finding an actual corpse of the long-sought monster are bogus. The good news is that it didn't take all that long to bust the Bigfoot myth. The Internet lends itself easily to putting forth all sorts of tomfoolery, but more and more folks are using online communities to track down the truth as well.
The most reliable sources for checking Internet myths and downright scams are the folks at Snopes.com, home of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. The Discovery Channel's MythBusters have also made a name for themselves, and there are many more on the Web. Here are a few other myth-busting sites to sample:
... And for what it's worth, I'm tanned, rested and ready after a weeklong sojourn in California. Regular postings to Cosmic Log will resume on Tuesday.
NASA / ESA / SwRI / U. of Md. |
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The way some scientists see it, the asteroid Ceres (on the left) would be a planet
while the asteroid Vesta (on the right) would not. The difference? Roundness.
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Does Pluto deserve a place among our solar system's main planets, or were astronomers right to demote it to second-class status? Two years ago, poor Pluto's plight touched off the dispute over the how you define a planet, but now it's about much more than one little icy world. The Great Planet Debate rises to a whole new level this week, and thanks to the Internet, you can join in the debate yourself.
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XCOR Aerospace |
Click for video: The Lynx Mark I rocket plane, shown in this artist's
conception, would fly to an altitude of 38 miles (61 kilometers) and
serve as a test bed for a higher-flying Lynx Mark II. Click on the image
to watch a video from XCOR's March announcement about the Lynx.
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Last week was a good week for Virgin Galactic, a not-so-good week for SpaceX, and a fantastic week for XCOR Aerospace, which provided the engine for the Rocket Racing League's first custom-built aerial racer. The rocket plane performed without a hitch three times during last week's EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wis. - marking a new milestone on XCOR's stealthier route to outer space.
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I'll be taking yet another dose of summer vacation next week, so postings to the Log won't be as regular as usual. In the meantime, here are a few Web links to get you through the week - and if you come across anything interesting, feel free to leave the link as a comment. I'll pass them along whenever I get a chance.
Michael Hoch / CERN |
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The silicon tracker for one of the Large Hadron Collider's main detectors,
the Compact Muon Solenoid, is installed in December 2007. The LHC's
startup is now set for Sept. 10. Click on the image for a larger version.
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The countdown to the startup of the world's most powerful particle collider has begun with today's announcement that the first beam of protons will be sent all the way through the 17-mile-round Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 10.
A key phase of the final preparations for the $10 billion project begins this weekend, when Europe's CERN particle-physics center begins testing the last links in the high-powered chain of magnets that will eventually send beams shooting through the collider's ring with the energy of a bullet train. Those tests will continue all the way up to the "Red Button Day."
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There's a new Buzz on the big screen: No, it's not Buzz Lightyear in a "Toy Story" sequel. Instead, you'll see an animated version of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the new 3-D children's movie, "Fly Me to the Moon."
If anything, Aldrin gets even more animated in real life, particularly when he's talking about what he'd do to fix America's space program.
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E. Peng / Peking U. / NASA / ESA |
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These are just eight of the 100 galaxies observed in detail by the Hubble Space
Telescope as part of a survey to determine where globular star clusters are
concentrated. Click on the image to see all 100 galaxies
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Gobs of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that big galaxies steal globular star clusters from little ones, using gravity to pull off the heist.
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Maximilien Brice / CERN |
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Components of the ALICE detector spread out like sunbeams during the
integration of the device's inner tracker in March 2007. ALICE is one
of
the four main detectors at the Large Hadron Collider.
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The advance buzz over the world's largest atom-smasher is reaching a steady hum, and the date for the Large Hadron Collider's official premiere in Europe is due to be announced as early as this week.
The first all-around injection of proton beams is expected in September - at just about the time that a federal judge in Hawaii considers a case claiming that the darn thing could destroy the world.
Meanwhile, the LHC's older, less powerful rival - the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago - has announced discoveries that suggest the Americans could yet steal some of the Europeans' thunder.
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Cirrus Design |
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The Cirrus Vision SJ50 personal jet, unveiled this week, will be used as an air taxi.
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While the big commercial airlines (and their customers) may be struggling, a totally different approach to passenger air travel is gaining altitude: Personal jets have been among the stars of the world's largest experimental air show this week - and they're giving a boost to air taxi services across the country.
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