 | Atlantis Lands Safely February 20, 2008 9:46am in science |
Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down safely at 9:07am EST this morning at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis' landing marks the successful completion of STS-122 which saw the first new laboratory added to the station in 7 years. Columbus, Europe's contribution to the International Space Station was attached during the mission's 3 spacewalks. What's interesting to note is the Destiny laboratory, and until this mission, the ISS' only laboratory, was launched February 7, 2001 aboard Atlantis, 7 years to the day before Columbus launched also aboard Atlantis. Tags: nasa, spaceshuttle, science, astronomy, news |
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| NASA Sheds Light on Northern Lights December 12, 2007 7:42am in science |
NASA's THEMIS satellite, launched less than 8 months ago has discovered some interesting findings regarding the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. The energy traveled twice as fast as anyone previously thought, traveling about 400 miles in a minute. I wish I could move that fast. THEMIS also discovered that the Earth's magnetic field appears to be linked to the sun by what appear to be magnetic ropes. These ropes seem to originating in the Magnetosphere and are seemingly almost as wide as Earth itself. I have been fortunate and have seen the Northern Lights at two points in my life. Both times canoeing up in the wilderness of Canada. The sight is nothing short of breathtaking. The pictures you see can't even begin to grasp how beautiful they are. Sadly for me, living right outside Philadelphia, it is seemingly impossible to see the Northern Lights from here. On a clear night up there though, I could see thousands upon thousands of stars, the Milky Way, and of course the Northern Lights. Northern Lights Race Across the Sky [Space.com] Tags: astronomy, nasa, northernlights, news, links |
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| NASA Delays Atlantis Launch til January December 10, 2007 6:55am in science |
NASA delayed the launch of STS-122 Atlantis until January 2, 2008 as a fuel sensor in the external fuel tank showed the same glitch that prompted the initial delay on Thursday. This type glitch had previously been seen on STS-114 back in July 2005 for Discovery's first return to flight mission following the Columbia Tragedy in 2003. NASA has 3 primary reasons for doing this. The first is obviously the glitch, if the sensors report that the tank is full when it is really empty, the Shuttle's 3 main engines won't cut off and could result in massive damage to the orbiter which would obviously cause major problems. The second is that they want the solar wings of the International Space Station to be generating optimal power while Atlantis is docked. If they launch now, that won't happen. The third reason is the New Years Bug. Apparently the Space Shuttle computers can't properly handle the switch in years from December 31 to January 1. NASA was worried last year about Discovery's STS-116 mission, but they were able to launch and land prior to Christmas so it all worked out. NASA has a fix for it, but they'd rather not use it if they can avoid it. This bit of bad news comes after NASA successfully launched 3 Space Shuttle missions in 2007, so while it may be a sour note that they can't get the 4th launch in, they at least have something good they can look back on. Tags: space, news, nasa, astronomy, spaceshuttle |
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| NASA Tracking Air Leak in International Space Station November 29, 2007 7:45am in science |
SPACE.COM reports that NASA is investigating a minor air leak on board the International Space Station. This leak appears to be minor and is little risk to the crew or the upcoming STS-122 mission to be launched early December. NASA is having astronauts inspecting the seals beteern the Destiny Lab and the Harmony Modules as well as the seal between the Harmony Module and the Shuttle Docking Port. The good news is that the tests checking the internal pressure of the ISS are showing no signs of decay. NASA hopes to have this issue resolved although no one on the ground or on the ISS seems to be overly concerned showing seemingly that this possible leak really does show no signs of being a major risk. NASA Tracks Possible Space Station Leak [Space.com] |
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| Astrophysics Lab Replaces Supercomputer with 8 PS3s October 17, 2007 12:19pm in science |
 An astrophysics lab has replaced a supercomputer they use for research with 8 PlayStation 3 consoles. Some reasons behind this include the fact that using the supercomputers cost them $5000 a pop which adds up rather quickly. The whole idea that the PS3 can run Linux is also a plus as it allows the lab to run them the way they want uninhibited.
"The interest in the PS3 really was for two main reasons," explains Khanna, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth who specializes in computational astrophysics. "One of those is that Sony did this remarkable thing of making the PS3 an open platform, so you can in fact run Linux on it and it doesn't control what you do."
The 8 PS3s were donated by Sony and stringing them together with proper otimized code allows them to function very much like a supercomputer. The experiment they're running is to calculate the amount of gravity that would be generated should a black hole swallow a star. This grid has apparently been up for a month and the 8 PS3s apparently generate the processing power of about 200 supercomputer nodes that they used to use. Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s [wired.com] Tags: astronomy, playstation, linux, tech, news |
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