Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Jupiter's Moon Ganymede - First Global Geologic Map
Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto (i.e: the four moons of jupiter in photo order)
Surface features, such as furrows, grooves and impact craters are illustrated on this 360 degree view of the moon. The best imagery from NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 and Galileo spacecrafts were used to create it. Galileo Galilei discovered it in 1610.Could Ganymede, Europa and/or Callisto support life?
The Jupiter Icy moons Explorer – JUICE is the first Large-class mission chosen as part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. It will be launched in 2022 from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5, arriving at Jupiter in 2030 to spend at least three years making detailed observations. Jupiter’s diverse Galilean moons – volcanic Io, icy Europa and rock-ice Ganymede and Callisto – make the Jovian system a miniature Solar System in its own right.
With Europa, Ganymede and Callisto all thought to host internal oceans, the mission will study the moons as potential habitats for life, addressing two key themes of Cosmic Vision: what are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life, and how does the Solar System work?
Monday, February 17, 2014
KON TIKI
Having trouble viewing this video from your device? Clicky! Clicky!
Do yourself a huge favor (after you click play) use settings, quality 720P HD to view the above trailer.
Do yourself a huge favor (after you click play) use settings, quality 720P HD to view the above trailer.
Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name.
Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not, in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants in fact do have some South American DNA, lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl's theses.
His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.
The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean... As much as I want to give you all the facts, I wont disclose the outcome because this true adventure/story/movie is really fantastic. The movie is available to rent.
A GLORY RAINBOW
A rainbow gets its traditional semicircle shape from the horizon, which makes it seem as if it is half a circle. So when the same atmospheric conditions that create a rainbow are observed from an airplane, a rainbow can appear to be a full circle. This is called a glory, which NASA defines as an optical phenomenon that “looks like small, circular rainbows of interlocking colors."
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Reason #1,000,000,023 to be a Scientist!
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
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