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Category: Space

Spaceport America Gets A New Tennant

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May 10, 2013

SpaceX Joining Virgin Galactic At Spaceport America

” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez announced on Tuesday that SpaceX has signed a three-year agreement to use Spaceport America for flight testing.

According to a Spaceport America statement, SpaceX will be leasing land and facilities at the New Mexico site to conduct the next phase of flight testing for its reusable rocket program.

“I am thrilled that SpaceX has chosen to make New Mexico its home, bringing their revolutionary ‘Grasshopper’ rocket and new jobs with them,” Governor Martinez said today. “We’ve done a lot of work to level the playing field so we can compete in the space industry. This is just the first step in broadening the base out at the Spaceport and securing even more tenants. I’m proud to welcome SpaceX to New Mexico.”

SpaceX just finished up its first series of testing the new Grasshopper vehicle in McGregor, Texas. The company is planning to begin the next phase of development for tests performed in New Mexico.”

SpaceX Joining Virgin Galactic at Spaceport America (sci-tech-today.com)
SpaceX Signs Three-Year Deal with Spaceport America for “Grasshopper” Rocket (dailytech.com)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX signs lease at NM spaceport (miamiherald.com)
SpaceX signs three-year deal with Spaceport America to test Grasshopper reusable rocket (theverge.com)
SpaceX signs Spaceport America deal to test Grasshopper rocket (slashgear.com)

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Tags: Grasshopper, McGregor Texas, New Mexico, Space industry, Spaceport America, SpaceX, Susana Martinez, Virgin Galactic

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Mars One Applications Flooding In

Filed under: Courage, Education, Foreign Policy, History, Individualism, Leadership, Nature, Preparedness, Science & Technology, Space — Leave a comment

May 8, 2013

Mars One Says 80,000 Have Applied For One-Way Mission To Red Planet

” Almost 80,000 people have applied to take part in a one-way mission to Mars, each of them completing a rigorous application that stresses the need for a “Can Do!” attitude, asks individuals about their sense of humour and requires the submission of an application fee that can be as much as $75.

Mars One, the Dutch company behind the proposed mission, says it has received applications from more than 120 countries. It also says that the role of Mars explorer/guinea pig is “the most desired job in history”. More than 17,000 of the applicants are from the US – the most of any country so far.

“These numbers put us right on track for our goal of half a million applicants,” said the founder of Mars One, Bas Lansdorp. “Mars One is a mission representing all humanity and its true spirit will be justified only if people from the entire world are represented. I’m proud that this is exactly what we see happening.” “

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Tags: 80 Thousand Applicants, Bas Lansdorp, Colonization, Exploration, Mars, Mars One, One Way Trip, Reality television, Space, United States

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Successful SpaceShipTwo Launch For Virgin Group

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April 30, 2013

Virgin’s Passenger Spaceship Completes First Rocket Test Flight

” A six-passenger spaceship owned by an offshoot of Virgin Group fired its rocket engine in flight for the first time on Monday, a key step toward the start of commercial service in about a year, Virgin owner Richard Branson said.

The powered test flight over California’s Mojave Desert lasted 16 seconds and broke the sound barrier.

“It was stunning,” Branson told Reuters. “You could see it very, very clearly. Putting the rocket and the spaceship together and seeing it perform safely, it was a critical day.”

The spaceship and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port at 7 a.m. PDT (10.00 a.m. EDT), heading to an altitude of about 46,000 feet, where SpaceShipTwo was released.”

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Tags: Mojave Air and Space Port, Mojave Desert, Richard Branson, Scaled Composites White Knight Two, SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Group, WhiteKnightTwo

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Video Of Last Night’s Partial Lunar Eclipse

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April 26, 2013

Surprising Lunar Eclipse Wows Skywatchers

” The moon toe-dipped through the Earth’s shadow in a partial lunar eclipse Thursday (April 25), but stargazers around the world still captured surprisingly spectacular views of what they expected to be a minor celestial event.

Partial lunar eclipses like Thursday’s event occasionally receive a bad rap because they aren’t nearly as dramatic as the red glow of the moon during a total lunar eclipse, and some times they aren’t even noticeable. That, however, wasn’t the case last night.

A live webcast from a telescope in Dubai and hosted by the online Slooh Space Camera streamed amazing views of the lunar eclipse at its peak around 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT). The lunar eclipse’s entirety was primarily visible from Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Western Europe, so stargazers in other parts of the world had to rely on webcasts like those provided by Slooh and the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy to catch the event.”

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Tags: Africa, Celestial event, Central Asia, Earth's shadow, East Africa, Eastern Europe, Italy, Live Webcast, Lunar eclipse, Moon, Online Broadcast, Partial lunar eclipse, Slooh Space Camera, Virtual Telescope Project, Western Europe

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Connecticut Home Struck By Meteorite

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April 25, 2013

Meteorite Crashes Through Roof Of Connecticut Home

” An expert confirmed today that an object that sailed through the roof of a Connecticut home was a meteorite. The crash occurred on Friday night.

On Friday night Larry Beck, of Wolcott, Conn., heard a crash in his attic. The next morning as he was checking things out, he found a significant amount of damage, according to NBC Connecticut.

“There is no doubt that this is a legitimate meteorite,” said Stefan Nicolescu, the collections manager for the mineralogy division at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, reports the Hartford Courant. “It doesn’t look like any terrestrial rock.” “

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Tags: Connecticut, Crashes Through Roof, Friday, Larry Beck, Meteorite, Stefan Nicolescu, Wolcott, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

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Three Years Of Solar Activity In Three Minutes

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April 24, 2013

Three Years Of Solar Activity In Three Minutes – Nasa Timelapse

” Nasa has created a time-lapse video of images of sun taken over past three years as it heads towards the peak of solar activity in its 11-year cycle.

During the course of the video, the sun subtly increases and decreases in apparent size. This is because the distance between the SDO spacecraft and the sun varies over time.

These images have regularly caught solar flares and coronal mass ejections in the act, types of space weather that can send radiation and solar material toward Earth and interfere with satellites in space.”

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Tags: Coronal mass ejection, Earth, NASA, Science, SDO, Solar Activity, Solar Dynamics Observatory, Solar flare, Space, Space weather, Sun, Three Years In Three Minutes, Time-lapse photography

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Orbital Science’s Antares Launch Scrubbed

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April 18, 2013

Orbital Sciences Antares Test Launch Scrubbed After Malfunction (+video)

” The launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation‘s Antares rocket was scrubbed Wednesday afternoon after an umbilical cord to the rocket’s second stage detached prematurely

.The rocket is one of two commercial rockets NASA is relying on to resupply the International Space Station in the post-space-shuttle era.

Umbilical cords typically supply power and allow flight controllers to monitor a rocket’s systems until shortly before launch, when these functions are transferred to the rocket’s internal control systems.

The cord dropped from its connector about 12 minutes before the main engines were to ignite. The ground team must drain the fuel tanks before technicians can reach the rocket and pinpoint the cause of the failure.”

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Antares Rocket Test Flight On Hold (astronaut.com)
Watch Live: First Launch of Antares Rocket (universetoday.com)
New Private Rocket Launching on Maiden Flight from Virginia Today (space.com)
LIVE: Antares rocket launch aborted (wtkr.com)
Antares Rocket Launch Scrubbed (science.slashdot.org)

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Tags: Antares, International Space Station, Launch Scrubbed, NASA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Rocket, SpaceX, Umbilical Cord Failure

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Manned Mission To Mars Coming In 2018

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April 16, 2013

First Manned Mars Mission Draws Flood Of Applicants

” COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — They’ll be crammed into a space the size of an RV for more than a year, breathing recycled air, subsisting on dehydrated food and drinking their purified urine. If they die, they’ll be freeze-dried in a body bag. And if they survive, they’ll have to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at a screaming 8.8 miles (14.2 kilometers) per second.

But the applications are already rolling in for the first manned mission to Mars, the project team said Thursday (April 11).

Speaking at the National Space Symposium here, members of the Inspiration Mars Foundationdescribed the challenges inherent in launching two humans on a 501-day flyby journey to the Red Planet and back in January 2018, but remained optimistic that those challenges aren’t insurmountable.

“So far, we haven’t come up with any show-stoppers, so that’s exciting,” said Jane Poynter, president of the Paragon Space Development Corp., which has partnered with Inspiration Mars.

Millionaire Dennis Tito, who became the first space tourist in 2001, unveiled Inspiration Mars’ “Mission for America” in February.

The goal is to send two people (a man and a woman, possibly a married couple) on a 501-day there-and-back flyby around Mars in January 2018. The positions of Earth and Mars are then ideal for such a quick trip; the next such opportunity won’t come around until 2031.

The goal of the mission is to inspire the public — and Congress — to recommit to long-distance space travel, Tito said at the National Space Symposium.”

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Tags: 501-day flyby journey, Dennis Tito, Exploration, Jane Poynter, January 2018, Manned mission to Mars, Mars, National Space Symposium, Red Planet, Space, space tourist, Space Travel

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Stunning video: Fire ball explodes, lights up Spanish skies

Video

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April 15, 2013

Tags: Astronomers, Fire ball explodes, lights up, Meteor, Space, Spanish skies, Stunning video, Telescope

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CERN Super Collider Upgrading To Double It’s Power

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April 13, 2013

CERN Super Collider To Have Twice The Power

” As two yellow-helmeted electricians rise slowly on a hoist from the cavern floor to check cabling on a huge red magnet, CERN scientist Marc Goulette makes clear he sees cosmic significance in their task.

“When this refit is completed,” he says, gesturing across the gigantic Large Hadron Collider, “we shall be ready to explore an entirely new realm of physics.” “

” The collider is only 5 years old but, after swiftly finding a crucial missing link to support mankind’s main concept of the universe, is now entering a two-year revamp to double its power in the hope of making breathtaking new discoveries.

Some scientists predict it will help identify the nature of strange dark matter that lurks around planets, stars and galaxies; others that it might find a zoo of new particles or even catch hints that space has more than three dimensions.”

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Tags: Big Bang, CERN engineer Simon Baird, CERN Super Collider, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Higgs boson, Jura Mountains, Large Hadron Collider, Marc Goulette, physicist Pauline Gagnon, Physics, proof of supersymmetry, Refitted, Science, Secrets Of The Universe

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The EMP Threat Is Real

Filed under: Apocalypse, Barbarism, Culture, Dependence, Foreign Policy, History, National Security, Preparedness, Space, Survival, Terrorism, War, Weaponry — 2 Comments

April 6, 2013

How North Korea Could Destroy The United States

” The administration moves an advanced missile defense system to Guam because it knows a single low-yield nuke detonated at high altitude could send America back in time a hundred years.

This move comes after the Obama administration reversed its previous scuttling of Bush administration plans to increase our ground-based interceptor force in Alaska and the deployment of two destroyers equipped with Aegis missile defense systems, the Decatur and the John McCain, to the region.

The three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could be a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be de-orbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and exploded at a high altitude, releasing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). That would fry electronic circuitry and the nation’s power grid.

This concern recently has been reinforced by a little-publicized study released in May 2011, titled “In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event,” by the U.S. Army War College that said a nuclear detonation at altitude above a U.S. city could wipe out the electrical grid for hundreds, possibly thousands, of miles around.”

Pentagon confirms deploying THAAD ballistic missile defense system to Guam over Korea tensions (rt.com)
Concerned Officials Warn: “North Korea Could Explode a High-Altitude Nuclear Device Over the United States” (thedailysheeple.com)
Concerned Officials Warn: “North Korea Could Explode a High-Altitude Nuclear Device Over the United States” (thesurvivalplaceblog.com)
U.S. on alert for nuclear blast overhead (wnd.com)
Pentagon to deploy THAAD ballistic missile defense system to Guam over Korea tensions (EndtheLie.com)
Forget the B-2s over Seoul, worry about Guam (stripes.com)
The NK Threat (lunaticoutpost.com)
N. Korea approves nuclear strike on US (ncrenegade.com)

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Tags: Electrical Grid Collapse, Electromagnetic pulse, Emp, High Altitude Detonation, In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event, Kim Jong-un, Low-Yield Nuclear Detonation, North Korea, Stone-Age, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, THAAD, United States Army War College

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The Sounds Of The Big Bang

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April 5, 2013

Listen To The Sound Of The Big Bang (2013 HD wave)

“ Sydney - Sound doesn’t travel in space? It does, in some forms, and it did during the early days of the universe. The sound of the Big Bang as a waveform is an interesting, if somewhat baffling, exercise in listening.

Science Daily explains the work of University of Washington Seattle physicist John Cramer, who came up with the idea of the sound of the Big Bang 10 years ago and has now refined it.

The story of the sound of the Big Bang derived from a science story Cramer wrote in Analog magazine. The mother of a child doing a science project on the Big Bang asked him if the sound of the Big Bang had been recorded.

Cramer answered that it wasn’t — but then began thinking that it could be. He used data from the cosmic microwave background on temperature fluctuations in the very early universe. The data on those wavelength changes were fed into a computer program called Mathematica, which converted them to sound. A 100-second recording represents the sound from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang until until about 760,000 years after the Big Bang.

This is where the story gets even more interesting. Space could actually carry sound in those very early days:

“The original sound waves were not temperature variations, though, but were real sound waves propagating around the universe,” he said.

“Space-time itself is ringing when the universe is sufficiently small,” Cramer said.

To improve on the original data, Cramer used information from the European Space Agency Planck satellite and some pernickety “fit” mathematics to create the sound of the Big Bang in HD.

The new sound versions of the Big Bang are fascinating.”

faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BigBang/Planck_2013/BBSnd100.wav

Universe ages 80M years; Big Bang gets clearer (boston.com)
Listening to the Big Bang – in high fidelity (nanowerk.com)
Listen to the big bang – now in hi-fi! (cosmiclog.nbcnews.com)
New big bang pictures show universe older, expanding slower than thought (thestar.com)
Planck maps the dawn of time (louisianauniverse.wordpress.com)
Planck space probe boosts Big Bang theory (thehindu.com)
Big-bang and its problems (releasingthetruth.wordpress.com)
Higgs boson, yes … Big Bang, not so fast (wnd.com)

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Tags: Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Audio Files, Big Bang, Big Bang Sounds, Birth Of The Universe, European Space Agency, John G. Cramer, Max Planck Institute, Sounds Of The Big Bang, University of Washington

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Glenn Reynolds On Who Owns Space Mineral Rights ?

Filed under: Cool Stuff, Courage, Education, Foreign Policy, Individualism, Law, Science & Technology, Space, Statism, Weather/Nature — 3 Comments

March 26, 2013

Who Has the Right To Mine An Asteroid?

” As PopMech has relentlessly covered, the race is on to tap the mineral wealth tucked away in the asteroids. But are these big space rocks free for the taking, or will asteroid miners find themselves bogged down in outer space red tape? Instapundit blogger and resident contrarian Glenn Harlan Reynolds investigates.

Suddenly, the idea of asteroid mining is everywhere. As a recent feature here in Popular Mechanics noted, asteroid mining has gone from a “someday” idea to a business plan for more than one company. As a professor who’s been writing, teaching, and practicing space law since the 1980s, I say, why not? Asteroids are valuable, they’re out there, and they are free for the taking.

Or are they?

Asteroids are certainly available, and they’re valuable. More than 750,000 asteroids measure at least 1 kilometer across, and millions of smaller objects are scattered throughout the solar system, mostly in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even a comparatively small asteroid is potentially quite valuable, both on Earth and in space.

A 79-foot-wide M-type (metallic) asteroid could hold 33,000 tons of extractable metals, including $50 million in platinum alone. A 23-foot-diameter C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid can hold 24,000 gallons of water, useful for generating fuel and oxygen. Even 1 gallon of water, at 8.33 pounds per, can cost tens of thousands of dollars to launch into Earth orbit. Prices will probably come down now that SpaceX and other private launch companies are in the game. But the numbers would need to improve a lot for water launched from Earth to compete with water that’s already floating in space. “

Asteroid Hunting (youviewed.com)
Asteriod Prospecting by 2015 (storiesbywilliams.com)
$195 billion in metal and fuel will just fly past the earth (mining.com)
Space-miners to crush asteroids and 3D print satellites (seattle-gadgets.tumblr.com)
Space miners say asteroid worth $195 billion (science.nbcnews.com)
“Asteroids are nature’s way of saying, ‘how’s that space program… (tedx.com)
Researchers Propose Giant Space Laser For Fending Off Future Asteroids (geekosystem.com)
Another Near Miss From Space (youviewed.com)

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Tags: Asteroid, Asteroid Mining, Astronomy, Earth, Jupiter, Legalaity, Mars, NASA, Ownership, Precious Metals, Property Rights, Solar System, Space Mining, SpaceX

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Star And Black Hole Duke It Out

Filed under: Cool Stuff, Photography, Science & Technology, Space, Weather/Nature — 1 Comment

March 20, 2013

Star And Black Hole In Dizzying Dance

” A star and a black hole are orbiting each other at the rate of once every 2.4 hours, smashing the previous record by nearly an hour, European astronomers say.

The black hole in this compact pairing discovered by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton space telescope is at least three times more massive than the Sun while its red dwarf companion star has a mass only 20 percent that of the Sun, and the pair is separated by only around 600,00 miles, a release from ESA’s Paris headquarters reported Tuesday.”

Black Hole-star Pair Orbiting at Dizzying Speed (myscienceacademy.org)
Black hole-star pair orbiting at dizzying speed (spacefellowship.com)
Spinning Black Hole Observed for the First Time (news.discovery.com)
NASA Puts New Spin On Black Holes (gizmodo.com.au)
NASA Supermassive-Black-Hole Gravity Discovery: “Confirms Einstein’s Theory of Space-Time” (dailygalaxy.com)
Astronomers Spot Black Hole Spinning Near the Speed of Light (escapistmagazine.com)
‘Nearby’ supermassive black hole rotates at close to the speed of light (guardian.co.uk)

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Tags: Binary star, Black hole, European Space Agency, NASA, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, Paris, Sun, XMM-Newton

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‘God Particle’ Confirmed

Filed under: Education, History, Science & Technology, Space, Weather/Nature — 3 Comments

March 14, 2013

CERN Says Data ‘Strongly Indicates’ Higgs Boson Found

Real CMS proton-proton collision events in which 4 high energy electrons (green lines and red towers) are observed. The event shows characteristics expected from the decay of a Higgs boson but is also consistent with background Standard Model physics processes. (Image from cds.cern.ch)

Real CMS proton-proton collision events in which 4 high energy electrons (green lines and red
towers) are observed. The event shows characteristics expected from the decay of a Higgs boson but is also consistent with background Standard Modelphysics processes.(Image from cds.cern.ch)

” It is now almost certain the subatomic particle that brings together everything in the universe has been found, CERN scientists announced on Thursday. Latest analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider proves that the Higgs boson actually exists.

The search for the missing particle dubbed as ‘the holy grail of physics,’ which has been going on for almost half a century and has brought the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) into existence, has finally resulted in some strong experimental evidence.

The question which has eluded countless physicists for decades, and the missing link explaining how the universe works at the very basic level, is what gives mass to matter. In other words, what has brings all the flying particles together to form stars, planets and humans ever since the Big Bang.”

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| ‘God particle’ confirmed: CERN says data ‘strongly indicates’ Higgs boson found! (truthaholics.wordpress.com)
Cern physicists: We found Higgs boson ‘God particle’ with Large Hadron Collider – Belfast Telegraph (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
Scientists more certain that particle is Higgs boson (cnn.com)
CERN: New particle is confirmed Higgs boson (upi.com)
CERN: LHC Data Confirms Particle is “God Particle”, But the Devil is in the Details (dailytech.com)
Physicists claim to have found ‘god particle’ (newsday.com)

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Tags: Big Bang, CERN, Compact Muon Solenoid, Higgs boson, Large Hadron Collider, Physics, Standard Model, Subatomic particle

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NASA: could have been, life on Mars, Rover , Space

Video

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March 14, 2013

Tags: NASA, There could have been life on Mars

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Manmade Black Holes

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March 13, 2013

Mini Black Holes Easier To Make Than Thought

” Creating microscopic black holes using particle accelerators requires less energy than previously thought, researchers say.

If physicists do succeed in creating black holes with such energies on Earth, the achievement could prove the existence of extra dimensions in the universe, physicists noted.

Any such black holes would pose no risk to Earth, however, scientists added.

Black holes possess gravitational fields so powerful that nothing can escape, not even light. The holes normally form when the remains of a dead star collapse under their own gravity, squeezing their mass together.”

Creating tiny black holes isn’t all that hard (science.nbcnews.com)
Mini Black Holes Easier To Make Than Thought (space.com)
Video: Particle Collisions Could Create Twin Black Holes (news.sciencemag.org)
Black Holes Won’t Incinerate You, After All (scienceblogs.com)
NASA Puts New Spin On Black Holes (gizmodo.com.au)
Curtains down for the black hole firewall paradox (spacedaily.com)
Black Hole Spins at Nearly the Speed of Light (news.nationalgeographic.com)
Astronomers Spot Black Hole Spinning Near the Speed of Light (escapistmagazine.com)

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Tags: Black hole, Earth, General relativity, Micro black hole, Particle accelerator, Physicist, Physics, Relativity

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Another Near Miss From Space

Filed under: Apocalypse, Science & Technology, Space, Survival — 1 Comment

March 11, 2013

Earth Gets A Rush Of Weekend Asteroid Visitors

” An asteroid as big as a city block shot relatively close by the Earth on Saturday, the latest in a series of visiting celestial objects including an asteroid the size of a bus that exploded over Russia last month, injuring 1,500.

Discovered just six days ago, the 460-foot long (140-meter) Asteroid 2013 ET passed about 600,000 miles from Earth at 3:30 p.m. EST. That’s about 2-1/2 times as far as the moon, fairly close on a cosmic yardstick.

“The scary part of this one is that it’s something we didn’t even know about,” Patrick Paolucci, president of Slooh Space Camera, said during a webcast featuring live images of the asteroid from a telescope in the Canary Islands.

Moving at a speed of about 26,000 miles per hour, the asteroid could have wiped out a large city if it had impacted the Earth, added Slooh telescope engineer Paul Cox.”

Asteroid 2013 ET Buzzes By Earth During Weekend Replete With Flybys (huffingtonpost.com)
Earth gets a rush of weekend asteroid visitors (science.nbcnews.com)
Watch big asteroid buzzing Earth this weekend on live webcasts (science.nbcnews.com)
Watch Big Asteroid Buzz Earth This Weekend: 2 Live Webcasts (space.com)
How to watch another asteroid flyby this weekend (mnn.com)
Four asteroids buzz Earth in single week (sott.net)

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Tags: Asteroid, Earth, near miss?, Near-Earth object, Patrick Paolucci, Slooh Space Camera, Space

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Comet Watching This Week

Filed under: Beauty, Cool Stuff, Education, History, Photography, Preparedness, Science & Technology, Space — Leave a comment

March 10, 2013

Everything You Need To Know: Start Watching For Comet PANSTARRS Now

” There’s a lot of excitement about Comet ISON, which might become a very bright comet, visible across the globe, by the end of 2013. But don’t wait for Comet ISON to look outside for a comet. A fainter comet – called PANSTARRS – has been sighted already in Northern Hemisphere skies. It’s low in the west after sunset – and probably brightest around the time it’s closest to the sun on March 10, 2013. The Southern Hemisphere has been seeing PANSTARRS already for some weeks. skyandtelescope.com reported on March 8 on one of the first U.S. sightings:

Longtime amateur astronomer Jim Brant writes from Homestead, Florida, latitude 25° N: “I spotted the comet naked eye at 7 p.m. tonight (March 7). It is much fainter than recent photos from the Southern Hemisphere, which is expected as they are time exposures. It looks like a faint straight jet contrail, about a degree long and fainter than I expected. It’s a pretty sight in my f/6.25 80mm University Optics refractor at 11x. Thought you might like to know it’s finally visible here.”

In other words, for latitudes like those in the southern U.S., PANSTARRS is visible now. The latitudes where PANSTARRS can be seen low after sunset are moving northward each day. The comet is low in the west after sunset – perhaps not prominent in the midst of evening twilight – but there if your sky is clear to the horizon and unobstructed by trees or tall buildings.”

Comet visible in the weekend night sky (newsnet5.com)
Comet PANSTARRS to be visible in nighttime sky later this month (chron.com)
Comet PANSTARRS to visit northern skies in March (earthsky.org)
How To Spot PanSTARRS Comet In The Sky Tonight (947thewave.cbslocal.com)
One in 110,000 year chance to see comet (stuff.co.nz)
Comet Becomes Visible Tonight!!! (fox41blogs.typepad.com)
NASA’s Guide to Viewing the Comet PANSTARRS this Month (io9.com)
Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) now visible with naked eye (familysurvivalprotocol.com)

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Tags: Astronomy, C/2011 L4, Comet, Comet ISON, Comet PANSTARRS, Comet Watching, Northern Hemisphere, PANSTARRS, Southern Hemisphere, Space, Visibility

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Look , Up In The Sky … A Bird ? A Plane ? A Drone ?

Filed under: Civil Liberties, Constitution, Engineering Marvels, Hope and Change, Liberty, Nanny State, New Media, Police State, Preparedness, Regulation, Science & Technology, Space — 8 Comments

March 5, 2013

A Drone? A Really Big Bird? A UFO? What Did Alitalia Pilot See Near JFK?

” The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report from the pilot who claimed he saw an unmanned or remote-controlled aircraft while on his final approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport .

The pilot, who was at the controls of Alitalia Flight AZA 60, a Boeing 777, spotted what may have been a drone about four to five miles southeast of the airport at an altitude of 1,500 feet while on final approach to Runway 31 Right at about 1:15 p.m.”

A Drone? A Really Big Bird? A UFO? What Did Alitalia Pilot See Near JFK? (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
Pilot Reports Spotting ‘Drone’ Over Brooklyn (fox2now.com)
Pilot reports spotting ‘drone’ over Brooklyn (fox4kc.com)
Investigation launched after pilot spots ‘drone’ near JFK airport (foxnews.com)

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Tags: Alitalia, Boeing 777, Brooklyn, Domestic Spying, FAA, Flight AZA 60, Investigation, JFK Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, NYC Drone, Remote -Controlled Aircraft, Unmanned aerial vehicle

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Planet Earth At Night

Filed under: Beauty, Cool Stuff, Fun Stuff, Photography, Science & Technology, Space — Leave a comment

March 3, 2013

Cool Renderings of Our Planet at Night [5 Pics]

Tags: Earth, ILTWMT.com, Night, Photography, Space

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Asteroid Hunting

Filed under: Choice, Education, History, Preparedness, Science & Technology, Space, Weather/Nature — 6 Comments

February 25, 2013

Space Agency Officials Plan To Slam A Spaceship Into An Asteroid

” It was announced in a joint effort U.S. and European Space Agencies are planning to slam a spaceship into the asteroid Didymos

The mission is called the joint European/U.S. Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission, or AIDA. Space officials announced Friday that they will plan to intercept the space rock in 2022.

The project will help scientists learn about the possibility of deflecting an asteroid from a possible collision course with Earth. Scientists will send a small probe into the asteroid which is 2,625-foot-wide and is part of a binary system. The asteroid and a smaller asteroid are in constant orbit each other. The probe will travel at 14,000 miles per hour and impact the asteroid while another spacecraft films the experiment.”

European Asteroid Smasher Could Bolster Planetary Defense (universetoday.com)
Asteroid mission now has its target (upi.com)
Asteroid-Smashing Mission Picks Space Rock Target (space.com)
Asteroids and how to deflect them | Stuart Clark (guardian.co.uk)
Asteroid-Smashing Mission Picks Space Rock Target (livescience.com)
Wanted: Asteroid-Smashing Ideas for European Spacecraft (space.com)
YOUR Help Needed to Hurt an Asteroid (news.discovery.com)
Suitcase-Size Satellite Launching Monday to Hunt Asteroids (space.com)
Asteroid impact mission targets Didymos (spacefellowship.com)

Tags: AIDA, Asteroid, Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission, Deflection Assessment, Didymos, Earth, European Space Agency, Extinction Event, Impact event, NASA, Space rock, Spacecraft

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Florida Fireballs

Filed under: Education, Science & Technology, Space, Weather/Nature — Leave a comment

February 20, 2013

Florida Fireballs Renew Calls For Early Warning System

” The streaking meteor was small compared to the one that hit Russia last week, but it was a bright light in the Florida sky – and was captured on video.

“This one wasn’t grain-of-sand size, which what most of them are,” Thomas Webber, director of the Museum of Science and History’s Bryan-Gooding Planetarium told the Florida Times Union in Jacksonville. “When we get something a little bigger, that maybe has a silicate coating that ablates off as it travels though the atmosphere and takes some of the heat with it, they can appear much brighter and last a lot longer.”

More than 60 people reported seeing the meteor on the American Meteor Society’s “Fireball Log.”

They posted comments including, “I saw flames coming from it as it was falling and then it burned out. It was very distintive as a flaming, falling ball.” “

Florida fireballs have people asking whether another meteor has visited Earth (pix11.com)
Florida fireball sighted Sunday evening (lunaticoutpost.com)
More meteors create fireballs over Cuba, Florida and California (mnn.com)
Florida Fireballs Light Up the Night Sky (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
Another meteor? ‘Fireballs’ light up Florida sky (secretsofthefed.com)

Tags: American Meteor Society, Fireballs, Florida, Florida Times Union, Jacksonville, Meteors, Museum of Science & History

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30 Hiroshima’s

Filed under: History, Preparedness, Space, Survival, Weather/Nature — Leave a comment

February 17, 2013

Estimates Raised For Nuclear-Sized Asteroid Blast That Hit Russia

” Scientists have raised their estimates of the size and power of what turns out to be the most widely witnessed asteroid strike in modern history. The size estimate puts the object that caused Friday’s meteor blast over Russia in a troublesome category of asteroids: big enough to cause damage, but small enough to evade detection.

The new estimates, based on additional readings from a sensor network built to detect nuclear blasts, suggest the meteor released the energy equivalent of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT. That’s about 30 times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

“These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world — the first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.”

AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Estimates raised for nuclear-sized asteroid blast that hit Russia. “Sc… (pjmedia.com)
The Sky is Falling! Asteroids and Meteors in the same day! – Wired (wired.com)
Estimates raised for Russian meteor blast (cosmiclog.nbcnews.com)
Meteors and asteroids: What is the difference? (herocomplex.latimes.com)
Sky Fall: Meteorites Strike Earth Every Few Months (npr.org)
Russian meteor hit atmosphere with force of 30 Hiroshima bombs (telegraph.co.uk)

Tags: 500 kilotons of TNT, Asteroid, Chelyabinsk, Energy, Extinction Event, Friday, Hiroshima, Modern history, Nuclear weapon, Russia, Shock Wave, TNT equivalent, Tunguska, Urals, Wireless sensor network

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