WcP.Scientific.Mind's blog

(quote)

NASA scientists have been outlining their preliminary results after crashing two unmanned spacecraft into the Moon in a bid to detect water-ice. A rocket stage slammed into the Moon's south pole at 1231 BST (0731 EDT) Oct. 9, 2009. Another craft followed just behind, looking for signs of water in debris kicked up by the first collision.

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water. Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

 read more »

(quote)

The leading cars in this year’s Global Green Challenge solar car race have passed the halfway point in their epic 1,864-mile (3,000-kilometre) race across some of Australia's harshest terrain from Darwin to Adelaide.

The Global Green Challenge - an evolution of the acclaimed World Solar Challenge - is the world's leading, cross-continental showcase of the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar, low emission, and alternative energy vehicles. The race, which is now in its tenth year, was pioneered by the South Australian Tourism Commission and aims to highlight the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar and alternative energy vehicles.  read more »

(quote)

"Tourist Trophy eXtreme Grand Prix". TTXGP is not a motorcycle race but the motorcycle race: the first, the most famous, and by far the deadliest. So it's all the more surprising that in the week before the race, a dark horse emerges, freaking out all the factory teams. The fastest bike in the TTXGP prelims - two qualifying runs around the island - turns out to be from Team Agni, a total unknown, a mere privateer. Millions of American research-and-development dollars find themselves chasing the tail of a no-money ratbike engineered in India. Cedric Lynch’s first electrical motor was made from flattened soup cans. His latest powered the Team AGNI machine to a historic TTXGP victory around the famous Isle of Man Mountain Course. Born in December 1955, Cedric Lynch developed a fascination with anything electrical or mechanical which turned into a life obsession.

 read more »

(quote)

*update*
Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the Moon by Stuart Roosa, the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

July 20, 1969 saw the first human footsteps on the moon. John F. Kennedy remarked, "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard." Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, after he snapped the historic Earthrise photo on December 1968, said, "we came all this way to explore the moon and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, took with him tree seeds from a Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweet Gum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. After Roosa's return to Earth, the original seeds were germinated by the U.S. Forest Service and the result was "moon trees." Moon trees now grow in many places. A Moon Sycamore also shades Roosa's grave at Arlington National Cemetery.  read more »

(quote)

An F/A-18F Super Hornet hits the speed of sound. As the plane pushes air away, the temperature drops and water vapor in the air forms a ring cloud around it.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Christopher Pasatieri / Reuters

Original Source: Reuters, Time, and F-18 SUPER HORNET BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER

(quote)

*update* 2019
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.

The $1.5 billion Hubble rocketed to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. It's named after Edwin Hubble, a pioneering American astronomer who furthered our understanding of other galaxies and demonstrated that the universe is continually expanding.

The Hubble's primary mirror, nearly eight feet across. A flaw in the mirror was discovered after the Hubble was in space; thanks to miscalibrated equipment, its glass had been ground slightly too finely at the edges. Though the imperfection measured just one-fiftieth of the thickness of a piece of paper, it distorted the Hubble's images. Astronauts fixed the problem in 1993.

About the size of a large school bus, the Hubble orbits at a speed of five miles per second, 353 miles above Earth. At that velocity it can cross the United States in about 10 minutes and circle the globe in an hour and a half.  read more »

(quote)

Ben Gulak invented an electric motorcycle that landed the 19-year-old freshman on the cover of Popular Science magazine for developing number one of their top 10 inventions of the year.

 read more »