space

NASA Scientist Turns Mars Rover Selfie Into Art….

NatarajanLeave a comment

A ‘selfie’ taken by NASA’s Curiosity Rover has become such a hit that it inspired one of the scientists on the team that created the camera taking the selfie to turn into an artwork.

NASA shared the picture on its Facebook page. It’s titled Le Petit Rover – a reference to French writer-aviator’s book Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince, a book about a planet-hopping ‘prince’ who falls to Earth from an asteroid.

Photo Credit: Facebook/NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover

The original image is a low-angle self-portrait of the Mars Rover, which shows the vehicle above the “Buckskin” rock target in the “Marias Pass” area of lower Mount Sharp.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The artwork inspired by the original selfie has almost 3,000 likes so far.

Source….www.ndtv.com

Natarajan

67,000 people have already signed up for this one-time opportunity from NASA …I have done Today !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

This is onetime opportunity… Your Name could fly aboard NASA’s Mars Mission….

natarajan

 

Natarajan

Source….KEN KREMER….www.universe today .com and http://www.businessinsider.com

Natarajan

6 Weird Facts About Gravity…

NatarajanLeave a comment

Loren Shriver Credit..NASA

Gravity: You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

Here on Earth, we take gravity so for granted that it took an apple falling from a tree to trigger Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation. But gravity, which draws objects together in proportion to their mass, is about much more than fallen fruit. Read on for some of the strangest facts about this universal force.

girl doing headstand

It’s all in your head

Credit: © Paul Simcock | Dreamstime.com

Gravity may be pretty consistent on Earth, but our perception of it isn’t. According to research published in April 2011 in the journal PLoS ONE, people are better at judging how objects fall when they’re sitting upright versus lying on their sides.

The finding means that our perception of gravity may be less based on visual cues of gravity’s real direction and more rooted in the orientation of the body. The findings may lead to new strategies to help astronauts deal with microgravity in space.

 

Endeavour landing

Coming down to Earth is tough

Credit: NASA Kennedy Space Center

Speaking of astronauts, their experience has shown that a switch to weightlessness and back can be tough on the body. In the absence of gravity, muscles atrophy and bones likewise lose bone mass. According to NASA, astronauts can lose 1 percent of their bone mass per month in space.

When astronauts come back to Earth, their bodies and minds need time to recover. Blood pressure, which has equalized throughout the body in space, has to return to an Earthly pattern in which the heart must work hard to keep the brain nourished with blood. Occasionally, astronauts struggle with that adjustment. In 2006, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper collapsed at a welcome-home ceremony the day after returning from a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

The mental readjustment can be just as tricky. In 1973, Skylab 2 astronaut Jack Lousma told Time magazine that he’d accidentally smashed a bottle of aftershave in his first days back from a month-long sojourn in space. He’d let go of the bottle in mid-air, forgetting that it would crash to the ground rather than just float there.

null

For weight loss, try Pluto

Credit: nullPluto may no longer be a planet, but it’s still a good bet for lightening up. A 150-pound (68 kilogram) person would weigh no more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) on the dwarf planet. The planet with the most crushing gravity, on the other hand, is Jupiter, where the same person would weigh more than 354 pounds (160.5 kg).

The planet humans are most likely to visit, Mars, would also leave explorers feeling light-footed. Mars’ gravitational pull is only 38 percent that of Earth’s, meaning a 150-pound person would feel like they weigh about 57 pounds (26 kg).

 

Hudson Bay, Canada

Gravity is lumpy

Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFCEven on Earth, gravity isn’t entirely even. Because the globe isn’t a perfect sphere, its mass is distributed unevenly. And uneven mass means slightly uneven gravity.

One mysterious gravitational anomaly is in the Hudson Bay of Canada (shown above). This area has lower gravity than other regions, and a 2007 study finds that now-melted glaciers are to blame.

The ice that once cloaked the area during the last ice age has long since melted, but the Earth hasn’t entirely snapped back from the burden. Since gravity over an area is proportional to the mass atop that region, and the glacier’s imprint pushed aside some of the Earth’s mass, gravity is a bit less strong in the ice sheet’s imprint. The slight deformation of the crust explains 25 percent to 45 percent of the unusually low gravity; the rest may be explained by a downward drag caused the motion of magma in Earth’s mantle (the layer just beneath the crust), researchers reported in the journal Science.

 

Colorized scanning electron micrograph depicting Escherichia coli bacteria, which recent research shows can breed in gravity 400,000 times stronger than that of Earth. Most E. coli strains are harmless, but the one here is O157:H7, which can cause severe

Without gravity, some bugs get tougher

Credit: CDC/Janice Haney Carr

Bad news for space cadets: Some bacteria become nastier in space. A 2007 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that salmonella, the bacteria that commonlycauses food poisoning, becomes three times more virulent in microgravity. Something about the lack of gravity changed the activity of at least 167 salmonella genes and 73 of its proteins. Mice fed the gravity-free salmonella got sick faster after consuming less of the bacteria.

In other words, Michael Crichton’s “The Andromeda Strain” had it wrong: The danger of infection in space may not come from space bugs. It’s more likely our own bugs grown stronger would strike us.

 

Spinning black hole

Black holes at the center of galaxies

Credit: April Hobart, NASA, Chandra X-Ray ObservatoryNamed because nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational clutches, black holes are some of the most destructive objects in the universe. At the center of our galaxy is a massive black hole with the mass of 3 million suns. Scarier thought? It might be “just resting,” according Kyoto University scientist Tatsuya Inui.

The black hole isn’t really a danger to us Earthlings — it’s both far away and it’s remarkably calm. But sometimes it does put on a show: Inui and colleagues reported in 2008 that the black hole sent out a flare of energy 300 years ago. Another study, released in 2007, found that several thousand years ago, a galactic hiccup sent a small amount of matter the size of Mercury falling into the black hole, leading to another outburst.

The black hole, named Sagittarius A*, is dim compared with other black holes.

“This faintness implies that stars and gas rarely get close enough to the black hole to be in any danger,” Frederick Baganoff, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was involved with the 2007 study, told LiveScience’s sister site SPACE.com. “The huge appetite is there, but it’s not being satisfied.”

Source…www. livescience.com
Natarajan

 

 

How to spot the International Space Station….?

NatarajanLeave a comment

Every so often, the International Space Station (ISS) becomes visible in your night sky. Here’s how you can spot it.

A composite photograph of the International Space Station from Earth. Image Credit: Dave Walker.
A composite photograph of the International Space Station taken from Earth. Image Credit: Dave Walker.
Is it a meteor? Is it a plane? It might be the International Space Station (ISS).Every so often, the ISS becomes visible in the night sky. To us on Earth, it looks like a bright star moving quickly above the horizon. The ISS is so bright, it can even been seen from the center of a city. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappears. How do you know when you can see the ISS in your night sky?

NASA’s Spot the Station program lets you sign up to receive alerts to let you know when the ISS will be visible from your location – anywhere in the world. You can get alerts via email or text message. Typically, alerts are sent out a few times each month when the station’s orbit is near your location. Visit the Spot the Station website here to sign up, and view a list of upcoming sighting opportunities.

ISS crossing the sky in a long-exposure photograph by Antonín Hušek?.

If you sign up for NASA’s new service, notices will be sent to you only when the ISS will be clearly visible from your location for at least a couple of minutes. If you live north of 51.6 degrees latitude (for example, in Alaska), you will likely have to visit the website to find sighting opportunities because notifications in this region would be rare.

The notices contain information on where to look for the ISS in the night sky. Just note where the sun sets and you can easily find the direction where the station will appear (for example, in the southwest or in the northwest). The height at which the station will appear is given in degrees. Just remember that 90 degrees is directly over your head. Any number less than 90 degrees will mean that the station will appear somewhere between the horizon and the 90 degree mark. The station is so bright that it is really hard to miss if you’re looking in the correct direction. Alternatively, you can stretch out your fist at arm’s length toward the horizon, which is equivalent to about 10 degrees. Then, just use the appropriate number of fist-lengths to find the location marker, e.g., four fist-lengths from the horizon would be equivalent to about 40 degrees.

NASA’s Spot the Station program is great. I’ve seen the station fly over twice now and it’s a pretty amazing experience—gets you thinking about how far our technology has advanced.

The first module of the ISS was launched into space in 1998 and the initial construction of the station took about two years to complete. Human occupation of the station began on November 2, 2000. Since that time, the ISS has been continuously occupied. The ISS serves as both an orbiting laboratory and a port for international spacecraft. The primary partnering countries involved in operating the ISS include the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia.

The ISS orbits at approximately 220 miles above the Earth and it travels at an average speed of27,724 kilometers (17,227 miles) per hour. The ISS makes multiple orbits around the Earth every day.

Photograph of the International Space Station taken from the space shuttle Endeavour on May 30, 2011. Image Credit: NASA.

Photograph of the International Space Station taken from the space shuttle Endeavour on May 30, 2011. Image Credit: NASA.

Astronauts Robert Curbeam, Jr. and Christer Fuglesang working on the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

Astronauts Robert Curbeam, Jr. and Christer Fuglesang working on the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

Bottom line: Check out the ISS in the night sky the next time it flies over your location. You can sign up to receive alerts with NASA’s Spot the Station program or visit that website to view a list of viewing opportunities.

Source….

Deanna Conners

http://www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

India’s Mars Orbiter sends back stunning 3-D images of the largest known canyon in the solar system

NatarajanLeave a comment

While the rest of India was tasting patriotic waters on the account of the 69th Independence Day, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan, sent us pictures which made us proud yet another time.

The Mars Orbiter Mission sent some beautiful images of the largest known canyon from the Red planet – Mars.

These are the images of Valles Marineris,  a largest known canyon complex in the solar system. This picture was taken from a height of nearly 2000 km from Mars colored camera.

A 62 km wide valley named Opir Chasma can be seen bordered by high cliffs.

Mangalyaan reached Mars on September 2014. It was an ecstatic moment for the whole country as ISRO was successful in its maiden attempt. Many countries like the USA, Russia, and Europe have accomplished successful Mars missions.

And what’s more, this is not the first time that an image has been sent. Earlier, they sent images of Martian landmarks – Aurorae Chaos.

It’s a long terrain with irregular blocks.

What this image proved?
It showed signs of fluvial activity which means showing signs of water or similar substances which could have flowed there sometime in the past.

You can see more pictures taken by Mangalyaan here.

Well, there is no doubt that this image proved the mettle of Mangalyaan another time, but it also proved to be a perfect Independence Day present for everyone especially because many studies have been undertaken to know about any signs of life on Mars. May many more pictures come our way!
Built at the cost of just Rs 450 crores, the orbiter still has 39 kilograms of fuel it still has left in the tanks – which could mean a few more years of breathtaking pictures, among other things.

Well done!

News Source: Aparajita Mishra in Hindustan Times…. http://www.storypick.com and  www.scroll.in

Natarajan

 

 

World”s 10 Safest Airlines ….

NatarajanLeave a comment

A Lion Air plane is seen in the water after it missed the runway in Denpasar, Bali in April 13, 2013. Photographs: Reuters

Five decades ago, 87 plane crashes took away the lives of 1,597 people.

This was when airlines carried only 141 million passengers, which is 5 per cent of today’s number, says Safety and product rating website AirlineRatings.com.

In 2014, though the number of fatal accidents fell to 21 (one for every 1.3 million flights), Malaysia Airlines’ two planes – MH370 and MH17 – met a fatal end that claimed 537 lives.

December 2014 saw the tragic end of 162 people from Surabaya who were flying to Indonesia when the AirAsia flight crashed due to bad weather.

Safety and product rating website AirlineRatings.com has listed world’s ten safest airlines.

Of 449 airlines which were included in the study, 149 achieved the website’s seven-star safety ranking and almost 50 had just three stars or less.
Take a look at the world’s 10 safest airlines…

A Qantas A380 arrives at its gate at Kingsford Smith International airport in Sydney. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Qantas

Topping the list is Qantas, which has a fatality free record in the jet era, says the report.

Qantas is Australia’s national airline with an impeccable record. AirlineRatings.com editors noted that over its 94-year history, “Qantas has amassed an extraordinary record of firsts in safety and operations and is now accepted as the world’s most experienced airline.”

: An Air New Zealand Boeing 777-300ER featuring livery advertising the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Photograph: Neil Hall/ Reuters

Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand ranks second in safety.

Based in Auckland, New Zealand’s national airline operates scheduled passenger flights to 25 domestic and 26 international destinations in 15 countries.

British Airways. Photograph: Reuters

British Airways

Ranked third in safety, British Airways is the UK’s largest airline on fleet size, international flights and destinations.

Photograph: Alex Domanski/Reuters

Cathay Pacific Airways

Cathay Pacific, based in Hong Kong also ranks high on safety.

The airline operates flights across 168 destinations in 42 countries.

Flight attendants serve journalists during a flight tour organized by Emirates airline. Photograph: Reuters

Emirates

Emirates is the largest airline in the Middle East with over 3,500 flights per week.

It operates in 142 cities across 78 countries.

Photograph: Reuters

Etihad Airways

Etihad Airways operates more than 1,000 flights per week to 96 destinations.

Etihad Airways is the fourth largest airline in the Middle East and the second largest airline in the UAE.

An Airbus A330-300 aircraft of Taiwan’s Eva Airlines, decorated with Hello Kitty motifs. Photograph: Reuters

EVA Air

Taiwan-based EVA Airways Corporation operates flights across 40 international destinations in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.

Photograph: Reuters

Finnair

Finnair is the fifth oldest airline in the world.

It has also been ranked one of the safest airlines in the world with no accidents since 1963.

Image: A Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 taxis after landing at Dulles International Airport. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

Lufthansa 

Lufthansa operates services to 197 international destinations in 78 countries.

It has one of the largest passenger airline fleet in the world.

Image: Singapore Airlines Ltd stewardesses pose next to a business class seat at Changi Airport. Photograph: Edgar Su/ Reuters

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines ranks amongst the top 10 in terms of international passengers.

It was the first airline to fly the Airbus A380.

Source….www.rediff.com

Natarajan

World”s 10 Longest Non-Stop Flights….

NatarajanLeave a comment

The world’s 10 longest non-stop flights criss-cross the world, cutting down travel time and making journeys easier and comfortable.

: Emirates to fly the longest non-stop trip. Photograph, courtesy: Emirates

While the longest non-stop flight in the world will take over 17 hours, the longest domestic flight in India — from Kochi to New Delhi — takes three hours.

The top 10 non-stop flights cover a distance of 82,702 miles, connecting big cities across the world.

Take a look at the world’s 10 longest non-stop flights…

Emirates

Rank: 1

Route: Dubai to Panama City

Distance: 8,588 miles

Duration: 17 hours and 35 minutes

Image: Emirates’ flight from Dubai to Panama city, to launch in February 2016, will be the world’s longest non-stop flight. Photograph, courtesy: Emirates

One of the world’s biggest airlines, Emirates plans to launch services to Panama City from February 2016, making it the longest non-stop flight in the world.

The service to Panama City will start with a daily flight operated by a Boeing 777-200LR aircraft.

Currently, it operates four longest non-stop commercial flights.

Qantas ranks 2nd in the list. Photograph: Reuters

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, these airlines operate the longest non stop flights… 

Qantas

Rank: 2

Route: Dallas to Sydney

Distance: 8,578 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 55 minutes

Qantas is Australia’s national airline and has the record of being the safest airline as well.

Founded in 1920, the third oldest airline in the world flies to 20 domestic destinations and 21 international destinations in 14 countries. Qantas also owns the low-cost airline, Jetstar.

Saudia flies from Jeddah to Los Angeles. Photograph: Reuters

Saudia

Rank: 3

Route: Jeddah to Los Angeles

Distance: 8,332 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 55 minutes

Founded in 1945, Saudi Arabia’s flagship airline flies to over 120 destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

The airline is the third largest in the Middle East in terms of revenue, after Emirates and Qatar Airways

Delta’s longest flight takes 16 hours and 40 minutes. Photograph, courtesy: Delta

Delta Airlines

Rank: 4

Route: Johannesburg to Atlanta

Distance: 8,439 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 40 minutes

The oldest airline operating in the United States, started off as Huff Daland Dusters in 1924.

The airline and its subsidiaries operate over 5,400 flights daily across 334 destinations in 64 countries.

Emirates

Rank: 5

Route: Dubai to Los Angeles

Distance: 8,339 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 35 minutes

The largest airline in the Middle East, Emirates operates services to 147 destinations in 81 countries in Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Far East and Australasia.

Since its launch in 1985, Emirates Airline has received more than 500 international awards

Etihad is the second-largest airline in United Arab Emirates.
Photograph, courtesy: Etihad

Etihad

Rank: 6

Route: Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles

Distance: 8,390 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 25 minutes

Founded in 2003, Etihad is the second-largest airline in United Arab Emirates.

The airline operates more than 1,000 flights per week to over 120 destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States.

 

Emirates operates four of the longest non-stop commercial flights. Photograph, courtesy: Emirates

Emirates

Rank: 7

Route: Dubai to Houston

Distance: 8,168 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 20 minutes

Emirates is the seventh largest airline in the world in terms of revenue and the fourth-largest airline in the world in terms of international passengers carried.

The airline has a record for being profitable for the last 27 consecutive years.

American Airlines is the world’s largest airline. Photograph, courtesy: American Airlines

American Airlines

Rank: 8

Route: Dallas to Hong Kong

Distance: 8,123 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 20 minutes

American Airlines, which started operations in 1934, is the world’s largest airline in terms of passengers flown, fleet size and revenue.

The airline established itself by merging 82 small airlines through acquisitions in 1930.

Etihad is ranked among the world’s best airlines. Photograph, courtesy: Etihad

Etihad 

Rank: 9

Route: Abu Dhabi to San Francisco

Distance: 8,158 miles

Duration: 16 hours and 15 minutes

Etihad Airways was ranked 9th among the world’s top 10 airlines by Skytrax in 2014.

Image: Cathay Pacific flies to 200 destinations. Photograph, courtesy: Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific

Rank: 10

Route: New York to Hong Kong

Distance: 8,072 miles

Duration: 16 hours

Cathay Pacific. founded in 1946, flies to 200 destinations in 52 countries across the world.

The airline has been ranked as ‘World’s Best Airline’ four times.

It subsidiary, Dragonair, operates to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its base in Hong Kong.

Source….www.rediff.com

Natarajan

Image of the Day…” Good Morning from ISS…”

NatarajanLeave a comment

Sunrise over the US west coast photographed from the International Space Station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly), currently on a year-long mission on the International Space Station, took this photograph of a sunrise and posted it to social media on Aug. 10, 2015. Kelly wrote, “#GoodMorning to those in the western #USA. Looks like there’s a lot going on down there. #YearInSpace”

The space station and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of 220 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Because the station completes each trip around the globe in about 92 minutes, the crew experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.

Image Credit: NASA

Source….www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

The Epic Moment When Goddess Kali Took Over The Empire State Building In New York…

NatarajanLeave a comment

Goddess Kali is regarded as the Goddess of death but the death of an ego. Of all the forms of Devi, she is considered to be the most compassionate one because she provides moksha or liberation to her children. And now, people in New York would know about Her. Yeah, you read that right.

Goddess Kali was displayed on to the iconic Empire State building in New York which is considered to be the tallest building and also the key piece of NYC skyline.

Empire State building had started a new trend to feature extinct species across the world. But, featuring Goddess Kali was a class apart. Android Jones is the artist who designed the portrait of Kali.

Why Goddess kali? Because She represents the destruction of evil, Android thought it would be a good idea to feature Her. Hence, he opines that She would work as the epitome to fight dangers and pollution.

Recently, the much touted Cecil the lion was also featured there. The death of this lion by an American dentist had caused international outrage. It was broadcast in a picture more than 350 feet tall and 180 feet wide. Other than this, many animals were featured to garner people’s attention and subsequently, create awareness.

Source….Aparajita Mishra in http://www.storypick.com

Natarajan