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Solar Tornadoes Dance Across Sun's Surface in NASA Video | Sun Tornado & Solar Flares |... - 0 views

  • The tornado-like eruptions of super-hot plasma were spotted by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is constantly recording high-definition videos of the sun.
  • shows swirling fountains of plasma creeping across the surface of the sun during a 30-hour period between Feb. 7 and 8.
  • unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are wind-driven phenomena, the sun's plasma tornadoes are shaped by the powerful magnetic field of our star.
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  • active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop to the gyrating streams of plasma
  • particles are being pulled this way and that by competing magnetic forces
  • tracking along strands of magnetic field lines
  • cooler plasma material appears as darker spots on a bright background
  • SDO spacecraft recorded the video in the extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum, giving the movie an eerie yellow hue.
  • released
  • SDO video
  • mark the second anniversary
  • on a five-year mission to record high-definition videos of the sun to help astronomers better understand how changes in the sun's solar weather cycle can affect life on Earth.
  • launched on Feb. 11, 2010
Mars Base

Dazzling Meteor Fireball Lights Up UK Night Sky | Space.com - 0 views

  • A spectacular meteor wowed stargazers across the United Kingdom Friday (Sept. 21) when it flared up and shattered into piece
  • spotted by observers across Scotland and northern England as well as Ireland
  • Many observers captured views of the meteor on camera
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  • video of the Sept. 21 meteor shows what appears to be a fireball created as a small space rock breaks apart in Earth's atmosphere. Pieces of the meteor can easily be seen separating from the main body in his view
  • many witnesses to wonder if it was sparked by a man-made piece of space junk falling out of orbit
  • experts have conclusively tied the event to a naturally occurring space rock burning up in Earth's atmosphere
  • Veteran satellite tracker Marco Langbroe
  • the fireball was definitely a meteor.
  • sighting reports to determine the fireball's trajectory and studied videos posted by witnesses to determine how long it lasted
  • ack-of-the-envelope reconstruction therefore shows that this must have been a meteoric fireball, quite likely of asteroidal origin, and we definitely can exclude a satellite re-entry
  • meteor in space is called a meteoroid. Only when it flares up in the night sky does it become a meteor. Any remains of the object that reach the ground, meanwhile, are called meteorites
  • Earlier this year, a rare daytime fireball surprised U.S. observers in California and Nevada when it unleashed a sonic boom that some mistook for a small earthquake. The meteor was caused by a minivan-size asteroid and created several meteorites that NASA retrieved in a follow-up search
Mars Base

Video Transcript: Curiosity's Cameras - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 0 views

  • received a lot of questions about the cameras on the rovers and we're here to answer some of those questions
  • The Curiosity rover actually has 17 cameras on it, which is the most of any NASA planetary mission ever.
  • took pictures as the rover was landing on Mars
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  • MARDI, or the Mars Descent Imager,
  • is the camera mounted on the end of the arm, and that takes close-up, high-resolution color photos
  • MAHLI
  • hazard avoidance cameras, or the HazCams. There are four of these in the front and four in the back, and they're used to take pictures of the terrain near the wheels and nearby the rover
  • Navigation Cameras, which take pictures that are used to drive the rover
  • Mast Cameras, which are color imagers, which are used to do geology investigations
  • the remote microscopic imager, which is part of the ChemCam laser instrument. And that's used to document the laser spots, that the rover makes on the surface
  • Many of the black and white images that come back from the rover are
  • black and white, or gray scale as we call it, is because that's all the rover really needs in order to detect rocks and other obstacles
  • Other cameras are color, such as the Mastcam imager, and the reason that they're color is because the scientists use the color information to learn about the soil and the rocks
  • There are 1-megapixel black and white imagers for the engineering cameras and 2-megapixel color imagers for the science cameras
  • In addition to the video that we took when the rover descending on to the surface, we've taken movies of the soil being shaken in the scoop.
  • files are pretty large and because we have a limited downlink each day, the scientists prefer to take still images of new targets
Mars Base

Wow! Curiosity Rover Captures 2 Mars Moons Together In Stunning NASA Video | Space.com - 0 views

  • Earth's moon
  • A spectacular new video from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the Red Planet's two tiny moons eclipsing each other
  • Curiosity snapped 41 images of the Mars moons in the night sky on Aug. 1, with rover scientists then stitching them together to make the final 30-second video
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  • the first time a view of the two Martian satellites — called Phobos and Deimos — eclipsing each other has been captured from the vantage point of the planet's surface
  • researchers are studying the images to refine their knowledge of the orbits of Phobos and Deimos
  • ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface
  • Phobos' orbit is taking it closer to the surface of Mars very slowly
  • Deimos may gradually be getting farther and farther away from the planet
  • Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide on average, while Deimos is even smaller
  • But Curiosity was able to spot both of them because they orbit
  • 3,700 miles (6,000 km) in Phobos' case and 12,470 miles (20,070 km) for Deimos
  • Earth's moon
  • a diameter of about 2,160 miles (3,475 km)
  • farther away — its average distance is 239,000 miles (384,600 km)
  • Phobos appears half as big in the sky to Curiosity as Earth's moon does to human skywatchers
  • Earth's moon
Mars Base

Virgin Galactic 8 5min video - YouTube - 0 views

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    Virgin Galactic 8 5min video
Mars Base

Frequent multitaskers are bad at it: Motorists overrate ability to talk on cell phones ... - 0 views

  • Most people believe they can multitask effectively, but a
  • study indicates that people who multitask the most – including talking on a cell phone while driving – are least capable of doing so.
  • data suggest the people talking on cell phones while driving are people who probably shouldn't. We showed that people who multitask the most are those who appear to be the least capable of multitasking effectively
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  • The people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it, when in fact they are no better than average and often worse
  • The study ran 310 undergraduate psychology students through a battery of tests and questionnaires to measure actual multitasking ability, perceived multitasking ability, cell phone use while driving, use of a wide array of electronic media, and personality traits such as impulsivity and sensation-seeking.
  • people who score high on a test of actual multitasking ability tend not to multitask because they are better able to focus attention on the task at hand
  • 70 percent of participants thought they were above average at multitasking, which is statistically impossible
  • The more people multitask by talking on cell phones while driving or by using multiple media at once, the more they lack the actual ability to multitask, and their perceived multitasking ability "was found to be significantly inflated
  • People with high levels of impulsivity and sensation-seeking reported more multitasking
  • there was an exception: People who talk on cell phones while driving tend not to be impulsive, indicating that cell phone use is a deliberate choice
  • research suggests that people who engage in multitasking often do so not because they have the ability, but "because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task
  • The study participants were 310 University of Utah psychology undergraduates – 176 female and 134 male with a median age of 21 – who volunteered for their department's subject pool in exchange for extra course credit.
  • To measure actual multitasking ability, participants performed a test named Operation Span, or OSPAN.
  • The test involves two tasks: memorization and math computation
  • Participants must remember two to seven letters, each separated by a math equation that they must identify as true or false
  • A simple example of a question: "is 2+4=6?, g, is 3-2=2?, a, is 4x3=12." Answer: true, g, false, a, true.
  • Participants also ranked their perceptions of their own multitasking ability by giving themselves a score ranging from zero to 100, with 50 percent meaning average.
  • Study subjects reported how often they used a cell phone while driving, and what percentage of the time they are on the phone while driving
  • also completed a survey of how often and for how many hours they use which media, including printed material, television and video, computer video, music, nonmusic audio, video games, phone, instant and text messaging, e-mail, the Web and other computer software such as word processing
  • researchers looked for significant correlations among results of the various tests and questionnaires
  • people who multitask the most tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking, overconfident of their multitasking abilities, and they tend to be less capable of multitasking
  • 25 percent of the people who performed best on the OSPAN test of multitasking ability "are the people who are least likely to multitask and are most likely to do one thing at a time
  • 70 percent of participants said they were above-average at multitasking, and they were more likely to multitask
  • Media multitasking – except cell phone use while driving – correlated significantly with impulsivity, particularly the inability to concentrate and acting without thinking.
  • Multitasking, including cell phone use while driving, correlated significantly with sensation-seeking, indicating some people multitask because it is more stimulating, interesting and challenging, and less boring – even if it may hurt their overall performance
Mars Base

Astronomers Calculate Orbit and Origins of Russian Fireball - 0 views

  • Just a week after a huge fireball streaked across the skies of the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, astronomers published a paper that reconstructs the orbit and determines the origins of the space rock
  • University of Antioquia in
  • Colombia used a resource not always available in meteorite falls: the numerous dashboard and security cameras that captured the huge fireball
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  • Using the trajectories shown in videos posted on YouTube, the researchers were able to calculate the trajectory of the meteorite as it fell to Earth and use it to reconstruct the orbit in space of the meteoroid before its violent encounter with our planet.
  • The results are preliminary
  • and they are already working on getting more precise results
  • But through their calculations, Zuluaga and Ferrin determined the rock originated from the Apollo class of asteroids
  • due to variations in time and date stamps on several of the videos
  • some which differed by several minutes
  • they decided to choose two videos from different locations that seemed to be the most reliable
  • used this data and Google Earth to reconstruct the path of the rock as it entered the atmosphere and showed that it matched an image of the trajectory taken by the geostationary Meteosat-9 weather satellite.
  • From triangulation, they were able to determine height, speed and position of the meteorite as it fell to Earth
Mars Base

Growing bones with Lego - 0 views

  • A video produced for Google Science Fair shows how researchers at Cambridge making synthetic bone have turned to legendary children’s toy Lego for a helping hand.
  • The video, which has already had over 100,000 views, goes behind the scenes at the lab to show how the team develop the bone samples.
  • Bone has excellent mechanical properties for its weight
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  • synthetic bone has a range of revolutionary applications; from the obvious, such as medical implants, to the almost science fiction, such as a material in building construction
  • the process involved in producing samples of bone is tedious and time consuming.
  • To make the bone-like substance you take a sample, then you dip it into one beaker of calcium and protein, then rinse it in some water and dip in into another beaker of phosphate and protein – you have to do it over and over and over again to build up the compound
  • team started to think about ways of automating the arduous process – the ideal being a robot of some kind that they could set up and run in the background
  • One way would be to buy very expensive kit off the shelf
  • Lego just seemed like the simplest, and cheapest, way to go about things
  • researchers decided to build cranes from a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit
  • contains microprocessors, motors, and sensors that can be programmed to perform basic tasks on repeat
  • sample is tied to string at the end of the crane which then dips it in the different solutions
  • Research is a funny thing because you might think that we order everything up from scientific catalogues – but actually a lot of the things we use around the lab are household items, things that we picked up at the local home goods store – so our Lego robots just fit in with that mind-set
  • The team at Cambridge are working on hydroxyapatite–gelatin composites to create synthetic bone, and the work is generating considerable interest due to the low energy costs and improved similarity to the tissues they are intended to replace.
  • video was made in the lab at the Department of Engineering by Google to help promote their online Science Fair
  • international competition run by the company to encourage teenagers to engage with science
  • Anybody and everybody between 13 and 18 can enter
Mars Base

Video: Cheetah Robot Sets a New Land Speed Record | Popular Science - 0 views

  • Boston Dynamics' Cheetah
  • fastest a robot had ever run
  • was coursing along at 18 miles per hour
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  • that up to a frightening 28.3 MPH.
  • Usain Bolt's peak speed during the 100-meter dash was 27.78 MPH
  • Cheetah, for now, is tethered to an external power supply, and runs on an indoor treadmill.
  • Next year, however, Boston Dynamics plans to unleash Wildcat (pictured above), a Cheetah that's designed to run untethered.
Mars Base

NASA - Space Station Astronaut Will Answer Video Questions From Public - 0 views

  • unique opportunity to ask the commander of the International Space Station a question about his role on the orbiting outpost
  • Commander Dan Burbank will answer videotaped questions from the public during a live event tentatively set for Friday, Jan. 20
  • video questions must be less than 30 seconds
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  • Submitters should introduce themselves and mention their location
  • Questions must be posted as responses to a video Burbank recorded on YouTube at: http://go.nasa.gov/sDYpzP
  • Burbank launched to the station on Nov. 13
  • conduct a variety of science experiments and perform station maintenance during his nearly six-month stay on the outpost
  • Burbank will answer questions during the time available
  • airing live on NASA TV
  • answers will be posted to YouTube
  • http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie
  • Expedition 30 and the exact time of the event, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Mars Base

10 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do | NASA, Mars Science Laboratory & Curio... - 0 views

  • Mast Camera (MastCam)
  • capture high-resolution color pictures and video of the Martian landscape, which scientists will study and laypeople will gawk at
  • Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)
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  • will function much like a high-powered magnifying glass
  • instrument will take color pictures of features as tiny as 12.5 microns — smaller than the width of a human hair
  • MAHLI sits on the end of Curiosity's five-jointed, 7-foot (2.1-meter) robotic arm
  • Mars Descent Imager (MARDI)
  • small camera located on Curiosity's main body, will record video of the rover's descent to the Martian surface
  • will click on a mile or two above the ground, as soon as Curiosity jettisons its heat shield. The instrument will then take video at five frames per second until the rover touches down. The footage will help the MSL team plan Curiosity's Red Planet rovings, and it should also provide information about the geological context of the landing site, the 100-mile-wide
  • Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)
  • makes up about half of the rover's science payload.
  • a suite of three separate instruments — a mass spectrometer, a gas chromatograph and a laser spectrometer
  • will search for carbon-containing compounds, the building blocks of life as we know it
  • look for other elements associated with life on Earth, such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen
  • The rover's robotic arm will drop samples into SAM via an inlet on the rover's exterior
  • Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin)
  • CheMin will identify different types of minerals on Mars and quantify their abundance
  • will help scientists better understand past environmental conditions on the Red Planet
  • CheMin has an inlet on Curiosity's exterior to accept samples delivered by the rover's robotic arm
  • will shine a fine X-ray beam through the sample, identifying minerals' crystalline structures based on how the X-rays diffract
  • Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam)
  • This instrument will fire a laser at Martian rocks from up to 30 feet (9 meters) away and analyze the composition of the vaporized bits
  • help the mission team determine from afar whether or not they want to send the rover over to investigate a particular landform
  • The laser sits on Curiosity's mast, along with a camera and a small telescope
  • Three spectrographs sit in the rover's body, connected to the mast components by fiber optics
  • spectrographs will analyze the light emitted by excited electrons in the vaporized rock samples
  • Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS)
  • sits at the end of Curiosity's arm, will measure the abundances of various chemical elements in Martian rocks and dirt
  • APXS will shoot out X-rays and helium nuclei. This barrage will knock electrons in the sample out of their orbits, causing a release of X-rays. Scientists will be able to identify elements based on the characteristic energies of these emitted X-rays
  • Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN)
  • located near the back of Curiosity's main body, will help the rover search for ice and water-logged minerals beneath the Martian surface
  • The instrument will fire beams of neutrons at the ground, then note the speed at which these particles travel when they bounce back. Hydrogen atoms tend to slow neutrons down, so an abundance of sluggish neutrons would signal underground water or ice
  • should be able to map out water concentrations as low as 0.1 percent at depths up to 6 feet (2 m).
  • Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD)
  • instrument will measure and identify high-energy radiation of all types on the Red Planet, from fast-moving protons to gamma rays
  • designed specifically to help prepare for future human exploration of Mars
  • will allow scientists to determine just how much radiation an astronaut would be exposed to on Mars
  • Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS)
  • partway up Curiosity's mast, is a Martian weather station
  • measure atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, air temperature, ground temperature and ultraviolet radiation.
  • integrated into daily and seasonal reports
  • MSL Entry, Descent and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI)
  • MEDLI isn't one of Curiosity's 10 instruments
  • will measure the temperatures and pressures the heat shield experiences as the MSL spacecraft streaks through the Martian sky
  • will tell engineers how well the heat shield, and their models of the spacecraft's trajectory, performed
  • data to improve designs for future Mars-bound spacecraft
Mars Base

Voyager 1 Probe Captures 1st-Ever Sounds of Interstellar Space (Video) | Space.com - 0 views

  •  Voyager 1 recording of the sound of interstellar space,
  • The sounds are produced by the vibration of dense plasma, or ionized gas; they were captured by the probe's plasma wave instrument
Mars Base

Physicists use Kinect to control holographic tweezers (w/ Video) - 0 views

  • Researchers
  • in Scotland have devised a means of using a Microsoft Kinect sensing system to allow for hand control of holographic optical tweezers
  • Laser tweezers are laser based devices that allow for manipulation of very small objects; typically at the cellular level
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  • A laser beam is projected towards a target, but before reaching it, is split into three separate beams
  • three beams are broadcast onto the edges of the object to be manipulated
  • as the beams are moved the object is caused to move in lockstep
  • , fine tuning control of the laser to cause the movement of an object has been less than ideal
  • researchers to continue looking for alternative means
  • In this new research, the team connected a Microsoft Kinect device to the tweezers and then demonstrated an ability to move microscopic sized objects by moving their hands around in the air.
  • connecting a Kinect device to their virtual tweezers, the researchers found that they were able to define the space in which they wished to work by using simple hand movements and then to connect, virtually to a particular tiny object
  • The Kinect
  • is not precise enough to capture subtle movements however
  • doesn't allow for force-feedback, or the ability to feel the resistance of an object as its being moved
  • HoloHands, is not sophisticated enough to allow for serious research work
  • being used as a tool for educational purposes, either as a tool, or implemented as a learning game.
Mars Base

Now Boston Dynamics' BigDog can lift and toss (w/ video) - 0 views

  • BigDog has a new appendage to its torso that resembles a head.
  • Boston Dynamics is giving BigDog an enhanced ability to rely on its entire body for throwing heavy objects around, with an appendage powerful enough to lift and throw the objects aside.
  • the entire body goes to work with fancy step-work to throw fifty-pound objects over its shoulder,
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  • grasping a block with "jaws" and flinging it out of the way.
  • The idea is to make BigDog successfully cope with heavy objects that need to be hurled out of the way
  • BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs
  • BigDog can run at four miles per hour, walk across the roughest terrain, make its way through mud and snow (its four legs are articulated like an animal
  • The robot carries 300-plus pound loads. According to Boston Dynamics, BigDog covered 12.8 miles without stopping or refueling, setting a world record for legged vehicles.
Mars Base

True colors of some fossil feathers now in doubt (w/ Video) - 0 views

  • evidence for the colors of feathers—especially melanin-based colors—can be altered during fossilization
  • past reconstructions of the original colors of feathers in some fossil birds and dinosaurs may be flawed
  • In modern birds, black, brown, and some reddish-brown colors are produced by tiny granules of the pigment melanin
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  • These features—called melanosomes—are preserved in many fossil feathers, and their precise size and shape have been used to reconstruct the original colors of fossil feathers.
  • had no idea whether melanosomes could survive the fossilisation process intact
  • experiments show that this is not the case. Our results cast a cautionary light on studies of fossil feather color and suggest that some previous reconstructions of the original plumage colors of fossils may not be accurate
  • experimental technique pioneered in the group's recent study on the colors of fossil insects
  • simulated high pressures and temperatures that are found deep under the Earth's surface
  • team used feathers of different colors and from different species, but the geometry of the melanosomes in all feathers changed during the experiments
  • This study will lead to better interpretations of the original plumage colors of diverse feathered dinosaurs and fossil birds
Mars Base

Robot snake automatically wraps around an object when thrown (w/ Video) - 0 views

  • Robot snakes have been developed in recent years to mimic the actions of their real life counterparts
  • researchers have developed such snakes that are able to travel over terrain in ways very similar to a real snake, and even to climb up objects such as a person's arm.
  • researchers have extended the capability of a robot snake to include wrapping and holding on to an object when thrown at it
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  • researchers were able to give the snake such an ability by making use of accelerometers embedded in its body
  • It's able to detect the sudden stop that occurs when it strikes an object
  • taking advantage of programming that had already been done by the team to get it to wrap itself around the object that it had struck
  • there is a difference between wrapping and constricting
  • this robot snake does the former, but not the latter
  • it doesn't squeeze the target, it simply wraps itself around it to allow it to hold on
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