GO PLAY IT BITCHES

NASA is giving everyone a chance right now to see what goes on before and during a shuttle liftoff with the Atlantis crew. God speed to those crew members.

Screenshots of Bioware’s Mass Effect 2.

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With all the advanced technologies that NASA and it’s astronauts get to play with, its really nice to see simple technologies being used up there for more knowledge. Here is a video of 3 CD players being used as a gyroscope.

It’s good to see that whilst the astronauts on the ISS are busy doing all that fancy science stuff, they’ve still got time for some good old tomfoolery. Surfing on a magic carpet, awesome!

Herschel and Planck

Europe’s entry into the space telescope market, Herschel and Planck (catchy names don’t you think?) is set to be blasted into the the dark void on Thursday 14th  May. The Ariane 5 rocket carrying the precious cargo was given the green light by Kourou spaceport in French Guiana after some doubt as to it’s condition. The two telescopes are being sent to the second Lagrange point (L2) , a one of five gravitional ’sweet spots’ worked out in the 18/19th century, which is approximately 1.5 million km from Earth on the opposite side to the Sun, where the telescopes can maintain a realtively stable position in the ‘dark spot’ with few orbital corrections due to the unique gravitational properties of the position.

Herschel, the bigger of the two brothers, at 7.5m in height is designed to monitor far-infrared and sub-millimetre waves allowing astronomers to investigate how stars and galaxies form and their evolution. Planck, the smaller but no less important sibling, will conduct a survey the Cosmic Microwave Background which is a “fossil light” that flows through the entire Universe and is detectible at radio wavelengths allowing investigation into how the cosmos came into being and what created its current form. The L2 position allows the extremely sensitive and complex electrics and mechanics in the two telescopes to avoid the temperature swings experienced in close orbit to Earth created by the emergence into and out of shadow. Both telescopes require a temperature as close to absolute zero (0K, -273C) as possible for efficiency due to the properties of the detectors used to analyse the exotic wavelengths.

Hit the read link for more on the ESA venture to discover the history of the Universe and how celestial bodies are formed and evolve.

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I’m always intregued by our investigations into space and time filled with wonder and things that we can barely comprehend never the less understand. One of the most curious and awesome phenomena in the universe has to be the Black Hole. Their existence is something of an enigma and the theory behind them is quite complex. The more we know about them the more questions become uncovered. Are they a gateway to another dimension or galaxy, a worm hole if you will? Can space and time really cease to exist as we know it at their center? What would happen if you were trapped in the gravitational pull of one of these monsters and are they only a totally destructive force? Well for those of you who are curious about these things (you’re a geek why wouldn’t you be?) here’s something I Stumbledupon the other day, a brief and informative walk through of the Anatomy of a Black Hole. Well what are you waiting for then, head on over and you might learn something for today?

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