Join NASA’s return to the Moon by sending yourself to the Moon!
Alright, it’s just your name. 
Just sumbit your name to the website below, you’ll be given a certificate to show your support of the mission. The names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) spacecraft.
LRO’s objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. This will be a historic mission.
The deadline of submission of names is 28 June 2008.
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/
22nd April, a day to be remembered, today is Earth Day.
The mother earth is undergoing disastrous changing. It’s obvious enough that everyone of us can feel it. For instance, the climate warming strongly affected the crops, which in return we have to pay for 20% more. Now, we pay back for what we had done to the earth.
My hosting service provider - Exabytes emailed me some interesting way to keep the earth green. Read them here.
The earth scientists at JPL, NASA also have some words.
Continue reading ‘Earth Day - Every Day Is Earth Day’
STS-122 Crew Ready To Launch
STS-122 mission is to deliever the Columbus, the European Space Agency’s new laboratory. Columbus will be installed on Harmony Node 2 which was delivered by the STS-120 mission. Harmony allows the addition of European laboratory (Columbus) and Japanese laboratory (Kibo) which will be transfered during STS-123.
The weather is not that great as forecasted so their chance to lift off is 30%. They’re going to launch on 8 Feb 2007 at 7:45pm UT. Good luck to them!
Did I mention that the every crew’s badge is so nicely designed?
More mission information at NASA
In the next 20 years, NASA will be laying the groundwork for sending humans not only beyond Earth’s orbit, but further into to space than they’ve ever been. The next key steps are:
- Complete the International Space Station and retire the Space Shuttle by 2010
- Begin robotic missions to the moon by 2008 and return people there by 2020
- Continue robotic exploration of Mars and the Solar System
- Develop a crew exploration vehicle and other technologies required to send people beyond low Earth orbit.
Though nearly 50 years old, NASA is only beginning the most exciting part of its existence.
Source:NASA
We always hear that people are sorted into types and groups automatically at a gathering or any similar activity. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) found a direct proof of this behavior having by globular cluster. Heavier stars are sinking into the cluster’s core and the ligher stars accelerate to the boundary of the cluster.
Continue reading ‘Globular Cluster Sorts Too!’
The STS-117 crew is going to leave the launch pad in 4 hours’ time. The good news is the weather forecast shows that there is only 20% chance that the weather will affect the launch. So, they’ll most probably leave on 8 June 07 at 2338 UT.
Continue reading ‘STS-117 Crew Is Good to Go’
This newly found most earthlike planet has the key ingredient of life, the liquid water. This exoplanet (extrasolar planet) is located at the “Goldilocks” position (not too far and not too close to its star) that the water on this planet can be in the form of liquid state. This exoplanet is named Gliese 581 C after its star, Gliese 581.
Continue reading ‘Most Earthlike Planet - Gliese 581c’
New Horizons is a spacecraft designed for discovering the “ex-planet”, Pluto. It was launched at 19 January 2006. It’s going to flyby Jupiter on 28 February 2007 as it needs the strong gravity of Jupiter to accelerate to a higher speed to reach Pluto in 2015. I am quite sure that New Horizons will break Christopher Go’s Jupiter Imaging Job. 
The distance between New Horizons will be shrunk from 40 million to 2.24 million kilometres. Until then, New Horizons is able to use its high-resolution imager (LORRI) to image Jupiter. Its resolution is believed to exceed the highest resolution that HST can archieve. LORRI will take its best full-disk portrait of Jupiter, just before the giant planet fills the camera’s field of view. So, let’s wait for the mouthwatering photos! Time to know more about Jupiter.
Look at the mysterious antique above. It’s the orrery made by ancient Greek. This device is made of bronze and encased in wood. It was found by divers off the Mediterranean island Antikythera in 1900. Thus, it is also called Antikythera Mechanism.
It enabled astronomers in the second century BC to predict the movements of the Moon and Sun, along with lunar and solar eclipses. It could recreate irregularities in the Moon’s motion due to its elliptical orbit. It also helped Greek astronomers to predict the location of the known planet. I guess this was the tool that made ancient Greek astronomers GODlike.
SOHO No.1200 Discoverer, Bo Zhou. Image courtesy of Renjiang Xie
1200th comet discovery of SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft was found by a Chinese amateur astronomer, Bo Zhou. The SOHO No.1200 was a tiny, diffuse, and very faint object. It’s detected in images taken with the spacecraft’s LASCO C2 coronagraph which he downloaded.
From this, we know that we don’t have to own a telescope to do researches or findings. There are quite a number of “virtual telescope” among the internet. I will try to collect as much as possible to benefit those who can’t afford to buy a research grade telescope.
I will create a page of the collection and more virtual telescopes will be added.
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