Overview Of Advanced Composition Explorer Mission also called as ACE

ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) is an Explorer mission that was taken care by the Space Science Mission (SSM)and Payload Development Division(PDD) of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA).. More on the ACE personnel, Also scientific CoInvestigators can be found here.....

Advanced Composition Explorer Mission was launched on a McDonnell--Douglas Delta II 7920 launch vehicle on August25,1997 from the Kennedy Space Center(KSC) in Florida..



The Planet Earth is constantly bombarded with a giant stream of accelerated particles arriving not only from Sun, but also from galactic sources and interstellar. Studies show these energetic particles contributes to our understanding of the formation & evolution of Solar system as well as the astrophysical-processes involved. Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft carrying 6 very high-resolution sensors & 3 monitoring instruments samples the low-energy particles of solar origin & high--energy galactic particles with a range of collecting power ten to thousand times greater than the past experiments.

These orbits the L-1 libration point which is a point of Earth-Sun gravitational equilibrium about 1.5 million kilometers from Planet Earth % 148 million kilometer from the Sun. From ACE's location @ L1 ACE has a prime view of the solar wind, interplanetary magnetic field & higher energy particles accelerated by the Sun,also particles accelerated in the heliosphere & the galactic regions which are beyond...



(ACE)Advanced Composition Explorer also provides near real time 24/7 continuous coverage of solar wind parameters & solar energetic particle intensities {called as space weather}. When reporting the space weather ACE(Advanced Composition Explorer) provides an early warning (about 1 hour) of geo-magnetic storms that can overload the power grids, disrupt communications on Earth, & present a hazard to astronauts.

ACE spacecraft has enough propellant on the board to maintain an orbit at L-1 until the year 2024.

More information of the ACE mission can be found in the ACE Mission Paper which is published in

Space Science Reviews

About Space Shuttle Mission- STS-119.........

Photo: STS119 Mission Specialists Mr John Phillips, Koichi Wakata & Richard Arnold, they participate in a training session seated on the middeck in one of the full-scale trainers @ Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Vehicle Mock-up Facility. Photo COURTESY: NASA//JSC

The Space shuttle Discovery's STS119 crew is ready to fly the S6 truss segment & install the final set of power generating solar arrays to the (ISS) International Space Station.

The S-6 truss, with its set of large U.S. solar arrays, would complete the backbone of the station & provide one fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of 6.

The 2 solar array wings each have 115foot long long arrays, for a total wing span of 240feet. They would generate sixty six kilowatts of electricity: enough to provide about thirty 2,800-square-foot homes with power.

Commander Lee Archambault would lead Discovery's crew of seven, along with the Pilot Tony Antonelli & Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba,John Phillips,Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold & Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Colonies on moon can be built using Lunar rock--like material in future.

Dwellings in colonies on the moon one fine day may be built with a new, highly durable bricks developed by students from the College of engineering at Virginia Tech in the United States.

The building material is composed of a lunar rock--like material mixed with powdered aluminium that may be moulded into any shape,such as a dome. The invention recently won an award from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES), which is dedicated to supporting life on the moon & beyond.

The early--development lunar bricks were based on previous work by the College of Engineering student team’s adviser Kathryn Logan,a professor of materials science & engineering at Virginia Tech.

Logan’s prior research entailed mixing powdered aluminium and ceramic materials to form armour plating for tanks.

“I theorised that if I could do this kind of reaction to make armour, then I could use a similar type of reaction to make construction materials for colonies on the moon,” Logan said.

Since actual lunar rock, known as regolith, is scarce, the students used volcanic ash from a deposit on Earth along with various minerals and basaltic glass, similar to rock on the lunar surface, according to Eric Faierson, a doctoral student who led the Virginia Tech team.

During initial experiments, the simulated regolith & aluminum powder were mixed & placed inside a shallow aluminium foil crucible. A wire was inserted into this mixture, which was then heated to 1,500 degrees Celsius triggering a reaction called Self--propagating High--temperature Synthesis(SHS), Mr Logan said.

The reaction caused the material to form a solid brick.

Once the students team had created a brick, they found it was almost as strong as concrete under
different pressure tests.

The team will now be studying how they can go about harnessing the very large quantities of heat derived from the SHS reaction to produce the electricity for the lunar colony, Mr Logan said.

Venus Possibly Had Continents and Oceans.

A look at data gathered by the Galileo spacecraft in year 1990 reveals that Venus at one time might have been habitable, with evidence of past continents & oceans. In a flyby of Venus on the spacecraft's journey to Jupiter, a near- infrared mapping instrument detected signatures which the researchers have interpreted as granite. An international team led by planetary scientist George Hashimoto, at Okayama University, Japan, found that Venus's highland regions emitted less infrared radiation than its lowlands. One interpretation of this dichotomy,says the team's new paper, is that the highlands are composed largely of ' felsic ' rocks, particularly granite. Granite, which on Earth is found in continental crust , requires water for its formation.

Alien World's First Glimpse.

A team of scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope captured the 1st visible-light snap of a planet orbiting other star. last November 14, came the report of a related breakthrough using the ground-based Gemini & Keck observatories in Hawaii, with which astronomers captured the first infrared image of three planets orbiting a star. Later, one more exoplanet candidate was spotted in infrared — by the European Southern Observatory’s Big Telescope—orbiting the hot, bright star Beta Pictoris.
Astronomers’ new discovered success at imaging planets trillions of miles away comes with the use of more powerful telescopes, advanced optics techniques, & software that compares images to minimize background starlight. Bruce Macintosh, an astronomer with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, tells that changes in the kinds of stars astronomers are seeking out—stars 49 to 99 percent more massive than our sun— may also factor into the number of exo-planet sightings. Spotting an Earth - like planet around a sun like star remains beyond current technology, but it seems much closer .

Recent Chandrayaan-1 Photos

Few "new" images have been released from the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission. latest are the first images from NASA's radar instrument that's hitching a ride on board the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) spacecraft. Called the Mini-SAR ,NASA's instrument recently passed initial in-flight tests and sent back its 1st data from Nov. 17, 2008, showing the first look inside one of the Moon's coldest, darkest craters. The image above shows a swath from the Mini-SAR overlaid on a ground-based telescope image of Haworth Crater. The swath shows the floor of this permanently-shadowed polar crater on the moon that isn't visible from Earth. The instrument will map both polar regions to search the insides of craters for water ice.

The Original Post is here

Harrison Schmidt. Courtesy: NASA

Back in the 1960's, scientists claimed that the Moon rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts may keep researchers busy for years, they weren't just joking. Analysis on one of the rocks collected during the Apollo17 mission helped to solve a longstanding puzzle about the Moon. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of technology carried out the most detailed analysis ever of the oldest pristine rock from the Apollo collection.Magnetic traces recorded in the rock provide good evidence that 4.2 bn yrs ago the moon had a liquid core with a dynamo, like Earth's core today,that produced a massive magnetic field.

to view original post click here

2 colliding galaxies located 140 million light years from Our Planet, Earth.

The ice-blue eyes are the galaxies' cores, & the mask is their spiral arms.The galaxies, called NGC2207 & IC2163,began their gravitational tango around 40 million years ago & will eventually meld into One.

Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/Vassar

Galaxies!!

Space Telescope picture indicates unprecedented detail of Antennae galaxies; an intense star-forming region created when 2 galaxies began to collide 200 million to Three Hundred million years ago. The bright, blue---white areas show newly formed stars surrounded by clouds of hydrogen, which are colored pink. A similar collision is expected between our galaxy, the Milky Way,& also the Andromedaa galaxy in many billion yrs.


Photograph courtesy NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

The Most Viewed Top10 space photos of 2008

Amazing shots of Mars w/Clouds Drifting Over Volcanos..

Hollywood meets Bollywood in Oscar-hyped `Slumdog'

Hollywood and Bollywood rarely meet. But in the new film "Slumdog Millionaire," the two international epicenters of filmmaking meet in an unusually successful union.

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Macs vs. PCs: Is it still a ‘tax’ if users happily pay a premium?

It’s the eve of MacWorld Expo and Microsoft officials are out talking up the idea of the “Apple tax” again.

The Windows team last mentioned the Apple tax concept during Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in late October. Then, as now, the Softies’ contention is that Apple’s higher prices — coupled with fewer natively ported apps — is making Macs less appealing to customers and partners.

“Apple had an excellent ride through October, but Windows is turning the corner now,” Brad Brooks, the Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Windows Consumer Marketing, told me during a phone interview on January 5.

Brooks hinted that new market data which will go public during the Consumer Electronics Show later this week will prove Microsoft’s claims. But he had no numbers to share today. Microsoft also is touting this week a chart that it plans to update once Apple makes any new MacWorld announcements that is designed to show that Windows PCs best Apple systems at every price point in terms of cost and functionality, Brooks said.

(Click on the chart below to see Microsoft’s Apple Tax spec sheet.)



original post::: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1786

Astronomers to fight for ‘planet’ Pluto in 2009

London: This 2009, a group of astronomers is planning to overturn the ruling, which says that Pluto is not the ninth planet of our solar systm.
In August 2006,the International
Astronomical Union (IAU), ruled that there are no longer nine planets in the Solar System, and downgraded Pluto to the lowly status of a “dwarf planet”.
But in 2009, Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in the US – along with like-minded colleagues – hope to get the ruling overturned at the next meeting of the IAU, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August.
“To me and others like me, Pluto
remains a planet and there are still nine planets in the Solar System,” Dr Sykes said. “The one thing that was particularly bad about the IAU’s decision is that it has tried to impose its view on the rest of us.”
The row over Pluto’s downgrading has been simmering since the astronomy organisation voted to relegate it in August 2006 in Prague.

It was agreed at the last vote of that conference – after many scientists had left.

“The IAU definition is so flawed on so many levels,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator on a NASA mission, New Horizons.

“It’s an awful definition; it’s sloppy science and it would never pass peer review,” he added.

The IAU coined the term ‘plutoid’ for objects like Pluto, which, while massive enough to form a near-spherical shape, do not have the gravitational influence to clear the neighbourhood around their orbit of other objects.

But,Dr Sykes disagrees.

“Pluto is far more like Earth than Earth is like Jupiter.Jupiter is a gas planet. It doesn’t even have a surface or topography, unlike Pluto,” he said.

“The argument over Pluto is a demonstration that scientists can disagree and that science is not some dictatorial project – it’s dynamic,” he added.

I thought the idea was that Chicago municipal WI-Fi was supposed to be free?

The city wide wi-fi is a dead end. The story is about Sprint and ?? Clearwire ?? bringing in Wi-Max as an alternative to 3G (really 2 1/2 G) networks along with a wireless option for the last mile of wiring.

The benefits for the consumer (residential customer) is that you now have faster downloads. The service is an asymmetrical bandwidth option. So you can download information faster than you can upload. So if you were to have Netflix's movie download service, you could download a movie in 1/4th the time over wi-max than you could over your ISDN line.(Faster is possible if you pay more for the bandwidth.)

From a business side, you can get symmetrical service that would allow for 'larger pipes' and faster response without having to worry about the 'last mile of cable'. Its potentially a faster service for less money. There may be some drawbacks, but this is definitely a good thing if you're trying to set up an office here in Chicago.

The importance of this article is that the roll out in Chicago should have started 5 months ago. We would be the largest potential market to date for this service.

Were the city to offer 'free wi-max', it would be a good thing, however, there are issues with offering any 'free service'.(Or even a low cost offer.)

I don't believe that Chicago has the IT infrastructure in place to actually effectively roll any sort of 'free or low cost' offering. Having said that, I believe that we could do something down the road.

The Worlds Biggest Liger

It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.

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Do You kno how to embed slide shows in feeds?

i know you would be not knowing how to embed the slide show even in ur feeds...
its very easy...
follow some simple steps just click here
nachofoto now has come up with innovative ideas ..
i found this innovation very interesting..
why dont you try it?
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cheers

Who Gets U.S. Foreign Aid

The U.S. will give an estimated $26 billion in foreign aid in 2008—70% more than when President George W. Bush took office (the figure doesn’t include funds related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). More than 150 countries get financial assistance from the U.S. Here are the six that received the most this year.

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2009 Preview: Introducing Your New Favourite Bands

Who will be 2009's MGMT, Ting Tings or Duffy? Caroline Sullivan asks music industry tastemakers who they expect to set the pop world alight in the next 12 months. See if you agree.

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Cornyn promises filibuster on Franken seating

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) threatened Friday to filibuster any attempt to seat Democratic Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken next week.

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i think i got some sort of bloggers block

what do u mean by feeds?

tell me what it is

Why Bush should be tried for war crimes

"Bush's violations of the Constitution as well as domestic and international law have besmirched the reputation of the United States," Haas writes. "In so doing, they have accomplished a goal of which the Al Qaeda terrorists only dreamed-to transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none."

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DNA Collection Does Not Violate Prisoners Religious Freedom

Russell Kaemmerling, who was convicted of conspiring to commit wire fraud and is being held in a federal prison in Texas, sued to block the state from collecting his DNA on the grounds that it amounted to a defilement of "God's temple" and was "tantamount to laying the foundation for the rise of the anti-Christ."

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Nanotubes shown to boost neuron signals

Researchers explain how carbon nanotubes could someday bypass faulty circuitry in the brain, for instance curing Parkinson's disease, as well as to repair spinal cord injuries and eventually to augment and enhance cognitive functions.

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Genes give Africans a better sense of taste

New research suggests that Africans have more sensitive palettes than Europeans and Asians – at least for bitter tastes. A survey of numerous African populations in Kenya and Cameroon found a striking amount of diversity in a gene responsible for sensing bitter tastes.

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More Colleges Expected to Offer Online Interviews

RALEIGH, N.C. -- For her college interview, Avery Cullinan put on her best outfit but didn't bother with shoes. She sat in her living room, smiled into her computer's webcam and told an admissions officer more than 800 miles away that Wake Forest University was right for her.

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Top 10 Application Development Stories of 2008

Cloud development platforms, mobile application development and the increasing acceptance of dynamic languages for Web development were among the top 10 stories in the world of software programming. With each passing year, software tools have become more sophisticated. While developers have more languages and tools to choose from than ever before.

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Unlocked iPhone Market Gets 3G, But No Threat To Apple

Want an iPhone 3G but hate AT&T (T)? Or want to plug in another carrier's SIM card to use your iPhone with abroad? That's now easy to do with Apple's newest phone: The iPhone 3G unlock is now available, and Gizmodo has instructions.

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sky jumpers

Sports photo

First Silly iPhone App for 2009 is Actually Amazingly Cool

I have almost no apps in my iPhone, despite John's excellent roundups and Adam's iPhone games recommendations. I only have the most useful ones for NYC. iSteam looks like one to install and keep.

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Google tells companies to drop Internet Explorer 6

The last bastion of IE6 hold-outs, corporate users, are being targeted by Google. Users of Gmail, including any companies using the services of Google Apps, are being advised to dump IE6 in favour of Chrome, Firefox or IE7.

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Arabs turn against 'megalomaniac' Hamas

The bitter Israel-Hamas conflict has touched off Arab-Arab conflicts almost as bitter. Leaders of the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Saudi Arabia has put the responsibility for current violence squarely on Hamas. Critics accused Hamas of megalomania saying it has behaved like a superpower.

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Is Microsoft Planning Its First-Ever Layoffs?

With the economy in the tank and other major firms planning massive cutbacks, rumors have been swirling for several weeks that Microsoft plans big layoffs of its own to be announced on or about Jan. 15.

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Drunk Man Shot After Breaking Into House He Thinks Is His

Prosecutors are considering whether a Colorado law meant to protect homeowners against intruders applies in the case of a man killed outside a house he mistakenly thought was his.

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RESPONSES:Is Microsoft Planning Its First-Ever Layoffs?

With huge cash reserves, and IP acquisitions headed for basement prices, it makes sense.
Microsoft is primarily an IP trading/integration company so this will allow them to get back to their core strength.
The Vista years of trying to innovate in-house didn't exactly pan out...

AMERICA IS()RAEL....(REEL)

Hello, I'm Jewish too, and this guy is a paranoid fuck:

"1. Israel created and funded Hamas through the Mossad to damage the standing of Fatah and the PLO and it worked."

Partly true. Israel did not create Hamas, but they were funded partially by Israel, as they were by many UN countries, including the US. It really is neither here nor there at this point.

"2. Israel owns this country, the USA, lock, stock and barrel."

Paranoid ramblings and also very much not the case.

"3. Israel has the good fortune of violating UN decrees and resolutions more times, hundreds of times more, than ANY OTHER COUNTRY. Completely ignoring them without sanction."

Except the US, in the last 8 years at least. This guy didn't find his way out of the propaganda machine, he's only spinning around inside it.

"4. While calling for nuclear, or as Bush would say nucular, inspections in Iran and other countries they absolutely REFUSE to allow inspectors inside Israel."

Israel has never been asked, as a member in good standing of the UN.

"I could go on forever, and by the way I'm Jewish, "

Not so sure here.

"and there are 100s of 1000s of Jews that know the truth about the sociopathic Zionists. Those psychotic intellectual degenerates that run the world. Read Ha’aretz, a Jewish newspaper printed in Israel. These are good Jews that know the truth but can do nothing more than print their paper. The Zionists, the Jewish settlers have too much power within the government to be overcome."
------------------------------

Look, I'm no apologist for Israel, and I'll tell you this, having been there many times...

Those people are fucking crazy. All of them. Israelis, Palestinians, everyone. And as a friend in Tel Aviv once put it (pretty succinctly):

"When you believe you live in God's tomato garden, you're already crazy"