A PHOTOGRAPHER FINDS ABANDONED SETS USED IN THE STAR WARSFILMS CRUMBLING IN THE DESERT.
In Star Wars (or Episode IV if you want to be like that), Luke Skywalker spends the first 15 minutes whining about his misfortune for having been born on Tatooine. He can’t go to Beggar’s Canyon to shoot womp rats with pals because he has to work his uncle’s moisture farm. Then he has to clean the new droids before suffering through a perfunctory family meal that ends in a storm-out, his ego bruised and dreams momentarily crushed.
An image from Rä di Martino’s 'Every World’s A Stage' set among the remnants of films sets used in Star Wars (Click Image To Enlarge)
The second half of 1 diptych from "Every World’s A Stage." (Click Image To Enlarge)
The photo set consists of 3 diptychs, with 2 black-and-white anagogic prints depicting the same subject but from different angles (Click Image To Enlarge)
Of course, fate (or destiny, in Lucas’s lexicon) would provide Luke with an escape. The cost would be tragic, and the 17-year old Jedi-to-be would never see his home again. Neither would the filmmakers. Lucas and his crew left the Lars Homestead set to rot after filming wrapped more than 35 years ago. In that time, the domed shell of the homestead sat unprotected from the desert winds, its location known to only a few locals. That is, until recently, when Luke’s erstwhile home was rediscovered by New York-based photographer Rä di Martino.
From "Every World's A Stage" (Click Image To Enlarge)
The Lars homestead - From Rä di Martino’s "No More Stars," which documents the ruins of Luke Skywalker’s home on the fictional planet Tatooine (Click Image To Enlarge)
The sets were abandoned after filming wrapped. Located near Tozeur in central Tunisia, near Algeria, the alien structures are virtually unknown by locals, and some can only be found with coordinates (Click Image To Enlarge)
She found it by accident, she tells Co. Design. A few years ago, when Di Martino was working on a project on the Chott El Jerid, a salt lake in Tunisia, she was scanning the site on Google Earth.
"I saw a tourist photo on Google Earth of a ruin used for the Star Wars films that was attached to the location."
She tracked the structure to somewhere near Tozeur, an oasis city in the country’s central region close to the Algerian border.
Di Martino spotted the sets in the Tunisian desert while scanning Google Earth (Click Image To Enlarge)
Di Martino calls the sets "strange archeological sites," fortuitously preserved by sand and a hot, arid climate (Click Image To Enlarge)
She traveled to the site and documented what had happened to the homestead in Luke’s absence (Click Image To Enlarge)
Tozeur and the surrounding region, it turns out, have served as the backdrop to many Hollywood’s memorable epics, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, another Lucas romp, and The English Patient. Yet, there’s little glamour to be excavated at these abandoned sites. They sit in perfect stillness, at the crest of the Sahara Desert, eaten away by dust and sand.
"No More Stars" (Click Image To Enlarge)
When she traveled to Tunisia in September 2010, Di Martino had only a printout of a satellite image with imprecise markers indicating where the mysterious ruin was supposed to be. Upon arriving, however, she found it nearly impossible to track it down.
"I ended up having to ask some frontier guards close by [in Tozeur] and showed them pictures of the site."
Luckily, one of the guards recognized it and delivered her to the doorstep of the Lars Homestead.
Di Martino found the fictional birthplace of the Rebellion’s savior in tatters. She preserved Luke’s humble digs for posterity in a series of photographs entitled "No More Stars." Di Martino discovered several more Star Wars sets, which she documented in "Every World’s a Stage." In the latter, Di Martino’s lens finds a nomad in the rubble of Mos Espa, a circle of mud-hewn habitations--really, cement-covered MDF--whose walls are festooned with coiled aluminum probosces signifying high-tech gadgetry. Passing through these non-ruins, di Martino says, was surprisingly moving.
"These places have existed only in our imaginations for so long for a lot of us, yet here they were,only now biologically decayed."
COMMENTARY: I wished Di Martino had posted the Google Earth coordinates so I could locate the Tatooine movie set site. I think it's incredible that it is still is fairly good condition in spite of the sand storms of the Sahara Desert.
Schematic drawing of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory underground facility in Italy's Gran Sasso mountain range (Click Image To Enlarge)
In a man-made cavern, deep beneath a mountain, scientists are hoping to shed light on one of the most mysterious substances in our Universe - dark matter.
It's buried under the highest peak of Italy's Gran Sasso mountain range; the entrance concealed behind a colossal steel door found halfway along a tunnel that cuts through the mountain.
At the forefront of the hunt for elusive particles is the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, the largest underground facility of its kind (Click Image To Enlarge)
But there's a good reason for its subterranean location. The 1,400m of rock above means that it is shielded from the cosmic rays that constantly bombard the surface of our planet.
It provides scientists with the "silence" they need to understand some of the strangest phenomena known to physics.
Inside three vast halls, a raft of experiments are running - but with their latest addition, DarkSide50, scientists are setting their sights on dark matter.
Everything we know and can see in the Universe only makes up about 4% of the stuff that is out there.
The rest, scientists believe, comes in two enigmatic forms.
They predict that about 73% of the Universe is made up of dark energy - a pervasive energy field that acts as a sort of anti-gravity to stop the Universe from contracting back in on itself.
The other 23%, researchers believe, comes in the form of dark matter. The challenge is that until now nobody has seen it.
Layout of Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy's Gran Sasso mountain range houses the world's largest underground facility of its kind for conducting research on sub-atomic particles includes Project Xenon which is conducting research for detecting dark matter (Click Image To Enlarge)
What is dark matter?
Normal matter gives out or absorbs light to make it visible, but matter doesn't have to interact with light this way
Astrophysicists calculate that there isn't enough visible matter to explain the rotation of galaxies
They proposed a type of matter that we can't detect in the normal way - dark matter
You can't see dark matter directly with telescopes, but its gravitational effect can be seen on visible matter
Dark matter should be all around us, so scientists are developing new ways to detect these mysterious particles
Dr Chamkaur Ghag, a particle physicist from University College London, explains:
"We think it is in the form of a particle. We have protons, neutrons and electrons and all these regular normal particles that you associate building things with. We think dark matter is a particle too, it's just an odd form of matter in the fact that we don't perceive it very readily. And that is because it doesn't feel the electromagnetic force - light doesn't bounce off it, we don't interact with it very strongly."
Physicists have called these dark matter contenders Weakly Interacting Massive Particles - or WIMPS.
They believe millions of them are passing through us every second without a trace.
But very occasionally one will bump into a piece of "regular" matter - and that is what they are hoping to detect with DarkSide50.
Inside the Gran Sasso National Laboratory scientists hope to detect that rare event when a particle of dark "stuff" bumps into regular matter (Click Image To Enlarge)
Inside a house-sized tank, a large metal sphere holds a particle detector called a scintillator.
This container is filled with 50kg of liquid argon and a thick layer of the element in its gas form.
Dr Ghag says.
"If a dark matter particle comes in and hits the argon, the recoiling atom gets a kick of energy and it quickly tries to get rid of it. In argon it gets rid of it by kicking out light; it sheds photons. But it also gives charge: some electrons that are liberated from the interaction site. And those electrons drift up into a gas layer, and when they hit the gas and you get another flash of light."
As dark matter particles steam through the detector, scientists hope that a few will collide with the argon atoms. This will generate two flashes of light - one in the liquid argon and another in the gas - which will be detected by the receptors. (Click Image To Enlarge)
In DarkSide, dark-matter particles are detected in a two-phase liquid-argon TPC surrounded by a neutron veto of liquid scintillator (spherical vessel), inside 1000 m3 of water to veto muons. Image credit: DarkSide collaboration. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Until now, the hunt for dark matter has proved elusive.
Some experiments claim to have seen signals of dark matter in the form of annual modulation.
This is the idea that the number of these particles we should be detecting changes as the seasons change.
That's because as the Earth moves around the Sun, it is moving into a stationary field of dark matter - and for half the year it will be moving against the tide of dark matter - just like driving into the rain. But for the other half it will be moving with this tide and less dark matter will hit.
But other researchers have questioned attributing these seasonal variations that have been detected to dark matter.
Scientists of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory are conducting experiments to detect dark matter inside a cavernous room underground (Click Image To Enlarge)
Other experiments have run for long periods of times without so much as a hint of the stuff.
One, called XENON100, which is also in Gran Sasso, ran for the course of a year, but only saw two "events" - not enough to rule out that this might have been some stray background radiation.
But with DarkSide50, there seems to be a new push to find some answers.
Alongside this experiment, another large detector - LUX - which is in a gold mine in South Dakota in the US will soon be coming online.
And in the next few years, scientists are planning even more ambitions detectors, such as XENON1T and LUX-Zeplin - they are hoping to find the first experimental evidence of these particles.
Aldo Ianni, from the DarkSide50 team, says:
"Dark matter is really a major scientific goal at the present time. It will help us understand a big fraction of our Universe that we don't understand at the present time. We know there is dark matter - but we have to understand what this dark matter is made of."
Fruitless search?
Professor Stefano Ragazzi, director of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, hopes that the first glimpse of dark matter will be in his research facility.
He explains.
"There is competition amongst different experiments - so when you compete you prefer to win rather than coming second or third. The feeling is that dark matter could be just around the corner, so everybody is rushing to be the first to find it."
However, he admits that there is always the chance that these experiments may find nothing at all - and dark matter may not be in the form of WIMPs.
Professor Ragazzi says:
"We may find that we have the wrong hypothesis… [dark matter] may be something completely different. But it may be even more interesting not finding dark matter than finding it."
In the next few weeks DarkSide50 will be fully kitted out, the surrounding tank flooded with purified water, and then the scientists will have to watch and wait.
But Dr Ghag says despite the uncertainties, the potential reward of finding dark matter would be huge.
He explains.
"If we did find dark matter, then we'd have done would be to solved one of nature's best kept secrets. And that would have been to have figured out what a quarter of the Universe is made of. That would be a revolutionary discovery - it would change our understanding of the Universe, the way it formed, and the way it will evolve."
COMMENTARY:
Why Scientists Believe Dark Matter Exists
The following video from Canada's Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics explains why scientists believe there is "missing or unseen mass" that does not emit, reflect or absorb any type of electromagnetic radiation or light and is necessary in order to keep galaxies from spinning out of control and breaking apart as they spin. This missing mass is now referred to as dark matter, or matter that cannot be seen.
The Technology Behind DarkSide50
DarkSide50 is a new experiment that uses novel techniques to suppress background sources as much as possible, while also understanding them well. The programme centres on a series of detectors of increasing mass, each making possible a convincing claim for the detection of dark matter based on the observation of a few well characterized nuclear-recoil events in an exposure of several years. The design concept involves a two-phase, liquid-argon time-projection chamber (LAr-TPC) in which the energy released in WIMP-induced nuclear recoils can produce both scintillation and ionization. Arrays of photomultiplier tubes at the bottom and top of the cylindrical active volume detect the scintillation light. A pair of novel transparent high-voltage electrodes and a field cage provide a uniform drift field of about 1 kV/cm to extract the ionization produced. A reflective, wavelength-shifting lining renders the scintillation light from the argon (wavelength 128 nm) visible to the photomultipliers.
In a two-phase argon TPC, rejection of background comes from three independent discrimination parameters: pulse-shape analysis of the direct liquid-argon scintillation signal (S1); the ratio of ionization produced in an event to scintillation, where the former is read out by extracting ionization electrons from the liquid into the gaseous argon phase, where they are accelerated and emit light through electroluminescence (S2); and reconstruction of the event’s location in 3D using the TPC. The z co-ordinates for the event are determined by the time delay between S2 and S1, while the transverse co-ordinates are determined through the distribution of the S2 light across the layer of photomultiplier tubes.
In a typical target, there are three main sources of background at energies up to tens of kilo-electron-volts: natural β and γ radioactivity, which induces electron recoils; α decays on the surface of the target in which the daughter nucleus recoils into the target and the α particle remains undetected; and nuclear recoils produced by the elastic scattering of background neutrons. This latter process is nearly indistinguishable from the signals expected for WIMPs and requires an efficient neutron veto in the apparatus.
As in other experiments searching for rare events, DarkSide’s detectors will be constructed using materials with low intrinsic radioactivity. In particular, the experiment uses underground argon with extremely low quantities of 39Ar, which is present in atmospheric argon at levels of about 1Bq/kg as a result of the interaction of cosmic rays, primarily with 40Ar. The DarkSide collaboration has developed processes to extract argon from underground gas wells, where the proportion of 39Ar is low. A particularly good source of underground argon is in the Kinder Morgan Doe Canyon Complex in Colorado. The CO2 natural gas extracted there contains about 600 ppm of argon. The DarkSide collaboration has operated an extraction facility at the Kinder Morgan site since February 2010; it has to date extracted some 90 kg of underground depleted argon and subsequently distilled 23 kg to about 99.99% purity. (The throughput is about 1 kg/day, with 99% efficiency.) Studies of the residual 39Ar content of the distilled gas with a low-background detector at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility, Virginia, give an upper limit for the 39Ar content equivalent to 0.6% of the 39Ar in atmospheric argon.
It is not only the argon that has to have low intrinsic radioactivity. Nuclear recoils produced by energetic neutrons that scatter only once in the active volume form a background that is, on an event-by-event basis, indistinguishable from dark-matter interactions. Neutrons capable of producing these recoil backgrounds are created by radiogenic processes in the detector material. In detectors made from clean materials, the dominant source of the radiogenic neutrons is typically the photodetectors, so ultralow background photodetectors are another important goal for DarkSide. A long-term collaboration with the Hamamatsu Corporation has resulted in the commercialization of 3-inch photomultiplier tubes with a total γ activity of around only 60 mBq per tube, with a further 10-fold reduction foreseen in the near future.
To measure and exclude neutron background produced by cosmic-ray muons, the DarkSide TPC will be deployed within an active neutron veto based on liquid scintillator, which will in turn be deployed within 1000 m3 of water in a tank 10 m high and 11 m in diameter, which was previously used in the Borexino Counting Test Facility at Gran Sasso. The liquid-scintillator neutron veto is a unique feature of the DarkSide design and is filled with ultrapure, boron-loaded organic scintillator, which has been distilled using the purification system of the Borexino experiment. The water serves as a Cherenkov detector to veto muons. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that with this combined veto system, the number of neutron events generated by cosmic-rays at the depth of the Gran Sasso Laboratory should be negligible, even for exposures of the order of tonne-years.
The DarkSide programme will follow a staged approach. The collaboration has been operating DarkSide 10, a prototype detector with a 10 kg active mass, in the underground laboratory at Gran Sasso since September 2011. This has been a valuable test bed during the construction of the veto system. It has allowed the light-collection, high-voltage and TPC field structures – and the data-acquisition and particle-discrimination analysis systems – to be optimized using γ and americium-beryllium sources. The first physics detector in the programme, DarkSide 50, should be deployed inside the completed veto system in the Gran Sasso Laboratory by the end of 2012. Looking forward to the second generation, upgrades to the underground argon plants are planned, and the nearly completed veto system has been designed to accommodate a DarkSide-G2 detector, which will have a fiducial mass of 3.5 tonnes.
3D concept illustration of NASA JPL's first lunar base (Click Image To Enlarge)
The first lunar base on the Moon may not be built by human hands, but rather by a giant spider-like robot built by Nasa that can bind the dusty soil into giant bubble structures where astronauts can live, conduct experiments, relax or perhaps even cultivate crops.
Shackleton Crater, the site of NASA JPL's proposed lunar base (Click Image To Enlarge)
Location and cutaway view of Shackleton Crater, the site of NASA JPL's proposed lunar base (Click Image To Enlarge)
We've already covered the European Space Agency's (ESA) work with architecture firm Foster + Partners on a proposal for a 3D-printed moonbase, and there are similarities between the two bases -- both would be located in Shackleton Crater near the Moon's south pole, where sunlight (and thus solar energy) is nearly constant due to the Moon's inclination on the crater's rim, and both use lunar dust as their basic building material. However, while the ESA's building would be constructed almost exactly the same way a house would be 3D-printed on Earth, this latest wheeze -- SinterHab -- uses Nasa technology for something a fair bit more ambitious.
Click Image To Enlarge
The product of joint research first started between space architects Tomas Rousek, Katarina Eriksson and Ondrej Doule and scientists from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), SinterHab is so-named because it involves sintering lunar dust -- that is, heating it up to just below its melting point, where the fine nanoparticle powders fuse and become one solid block a bit like a piece of ceramic. To do this, the JPL engineers propose using microwaves no more powerful than those found in a kitchen unit, with tiny particles easily reaching between 1200 and 1500 degrees Celsius.
Click Image To Enlarge
Nanoparticles of iron within lunar soil are heated at certain microwave frequencies, enabling efficient heating and binding of the dust to itself. Not having to fly binding agent from Earth along with a 3D printer is a major advantage over the ESA/Foster + Partners plan. The solar panels to power the microwaves would, like the moonbase itself, be based near or on the rim of Shackleton Crater in near-perpetual sunlight.
Click Image To Enlarge
"Bubbles" of binded dust could be built by a huge six-legged rClick Image To Enlargeobot (OK, so it's not technically a spider) that can then be assembled into habitats large enough for astronauts to use as a base. This "Sinterator system" would use the JPL's Athlete rover, a half-scale prototype of which has already been built and tested. It's a human-controlled robotic space rover with wheels at the end of its 8.2m limbs and a detachable habitable capsule mounted at the top.
Here's a video of it dancing, because science:
Athlete's arms have several different functions, dependent on what it needs to do at any point. It has 48 3D cameras that stream video to its operator either inside the capsule, elsewhere on the Moon or back on Earth, it's got a payload capacity of 300kg in Earth gravity, and it can scoop, dig, grab at and generally poke around in the soil fairly easily, giving it the combined abilities of a normal rover and a construction vehicle. It can even split into two smaller three-legged rovers at any time if needed. In the Sinterator system, a microwave 3D printer would be mounted on one of the Athlete's legs and used to build the base.
Click Image To Enlarge
Rousek explained the background of the idea to Wired.co.uk:
"Since many of my buildings have advanced geometry that you can't cut easily from sheet material, I started using 3D printing for rapid prototyping of my architecture models. The construction industry is still lagging several decades behind car and electronics production. The buildings now are terribly wasteful and imprecise -- I have always dreamed about creating a factory where the buildings would be robotically mass-produced with parametric personalisation, using composite materials and 3D printing. It would be also great to use local materials and precise manufacturing on-site."
He continued:
"It's good to realise that we have this unique chance to jump from our atmosphere and go to the next evolutionary level -- it's comparable with leaving the ocean and climbing down from the trees. I went to Strasbourg to study space architecture at the International Space University in France, where I formed the team with Ondrej Doule and Katarina Eriksson. Our friend there, Richard Rieber from Nasa's JPL, is one of the co-authors of the 3D printing system based on the Athlete robot. We were inspired by their invention and immediately started designing architecture that would use this technology."
Sintering is quite cheap, in terms of power as well as materials, and an Athlete rover should be able to construct a bubble volume in only two weeks, Rousek estimates. He said:
"It would have a very good cost-value ratio as you don't need to import as much material from Earth. The whole expandable module, with the membranes to cover the base when built, would be carried by the same rocket that would bring other modules of the outpost, but it can build a volume four times bigger than a rigid cylindrical module. Since we don't have the necessary transport capacity to the Moon at the moment, estimating a price now would be very inaccurate. As a comparison, the International Space Station has so far cost approximately $150bn (£99bn) but a lunar base could be designed much more cheaply with private companies."
3D concept illustration of NASA JPL's Sinterator moon crawler robot (Click Image To Enlarge)
Another benefit of sintering is that astronauts could use it on the surface of the Moon surrounding their base, binding dust and stopping it from clogging their equipment. Moon dust is extremely abrasive -- without natural weathering or erosion like on Earth, dust isn't ground down into smooth spheres. Instead it remains tiny yet jagged, perfect for getting into any exposed cracks, scratching lenses, wearing down airtight seals and becoming deeply embedded into human lungs. Former Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmidt has called the dust the biggest environmental issue on the Moon, even more so than radiation (which in SinterHab would be blocked by a combination of the Moon dust structure, "strategically located water tanks" and layers of inflatable polymers).
NASA JPL's Sinterator moon crawler robot (Click Image To Enlarge)
London-based space architect Rousek, director of A-ETC, has continued working on SinterHab with Doule and Eriksson since first proposing the idea in 2010 at the International Aeronautical Congress as a way of taking advantage of the Sinterator system. The design -- now published in the journal Acta Astronautica-- is based on the equilibrium found in bubbles. You might have noticed, the last time that you had a bubble bath, the way that groups of bubbles join together naturally to form a more solid structure -- that's exactly what SinterHab will look like. A bunch of rocky bubbles connected together, with cladding added later. Rousek explained:
"The internal structure was selected to demonstrate how we can arrange the interior and create walls inside. The first version should probably have only a single volume to decrease the risk. Then we could think about a bigger module, which would use connected volumes."
A second version of SinterHab -- SinterHab 2.0 -- is "currently being developed under the leadership of Ondrej Doule from the Florida Institute of Technology," Rousek said.
"We plan to further develop the interior design, deployment and construction process and life-support system. We would like to also do research about possible spin-offs of such construction methods on Earth."
Nasa iskeen on figuring out a way to build a lunar base, and as one of several proposals being batted around inside the organisation it's been used in a proposal for further development of sintering technology -- and I, for one, welcome our new robo-spider space architect overlords.
COMMENTARY: Presently 3D printers are only able to print, if you can call it that, small objects like a cup, vase or head bust. The machines that perform the printing are relatively small, fairly expensive and difficult to operate. What NASA JPL is proposing would simply be amazing and on a much larger scale. Sinterator would have to do its work of building the lunar base completely autonomously and without human intervention. This presents tremendous technological challenges for NASA JPL scientists and engineers.
Since there is no water on the Moon, and transporting building materials there from the Earth would be very costly, it is obviously cheaper to use directly the Moon's resources in order to make water-free concrete. US scientists developed a method that would allow for substituting water with the sulfur found in lunar dust. The resulting concrete would be very solid and would dry much faster than the regular one obtained here on Earth.
The sulfur that would act as a binder for the Moon dust can be extracted directly from it. The sulfur must to be in a liquid or semi-liquid form to work as a binding agent. This would imply that the dust is heated to temperatures of about 130° to 140° C. After cooling, the mixture immediately becomes rock-solid, ultimate-strength concrete able to bear about 170 times the atmospheric pressure (approximately 17 megapascals). With normal concrete you have to wait seven days, in extreme cases even 28 days to get maximum strength.
For building a suite of communications apps (instant messaging) that 300 million Chinese are talking through. That massive audience has flocked to Tencent's WeChat (or Weixin, as it's known in China), the Chinese Internet giant's suite of social networking plug-ins, in less than two years. Why? WeChat is less expensive, clearer, and faster than calling people on the phone. Late last spring, Tencent opened up its platform to other developers to create cool things for WeChat. Plus, Tencent's aggressive international rollout--rare for a Chinese company--has added millions of expats who can now communicate with folks back home, increasing its popularity. In America, WeChat is a top 20 free social networking app in Apple's App Store.
Tencent's WeChat messaging app (Click Image To Visit Site)
For unlocking our image obsession. A year ago, the social scrapbooking site was dubbed the fastest-growing web service in history. Where do you go from there? Up. Pinterest is now one of the top 50 most-visited sites in the U.S., and retailers are excited. The average purchase off a pinboard nets more than double those off a wall post or a tweet. Late last year, it simplified the process for companies to create pinboards. In January, it made its first aquisition, the recipe site Punchfork. Meanwhile, the Pinterestization of the web continues--a trend as hot as Pinterest itself.
For reinventing how news (and advertising) is shared. When he founded BuzzFeed in 2006, serial entrepreneur Jonah Peretti--who'd previously cofounded the Huffington Post--thought of it as a new-media mad-science lab. Social sharing was the next big distribution channel, he reasoned, and BuzzFeed was a place to create silly shareable content. The site is still brimming with listicles and cat videos, but over the past year, BuzzFeed has undergone a remarkable transformation: It's now also a serious news site and a pioneer in the world of social advertising.
For letting its community help fill the racks. Customer engagement proves profitable for Susan Gregg Koger and her husband Eric, founders of the virtual thrift shop turned e-commerce success story. Through its Be The Buyer program, products brought to market through customer voting sell twice as much. ModCloth took that to the next level in 2012 by letting the community actually submit designs too. Visit any of their social platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, and you'll see creative interactive campaigns and a commitment to user engagement.
For creating a socially-savvy e-commerce startup factory. The name is not an accident. For CEO Michael Jones and his partners, launching disruptive e-commerce companies means deep analysis of big bets. They also specialize in identifying the best social tools to create fans and turn them into customers and brand advocates. For example, Heather Lipner's Uncovet harnesses social data to make a virtual, personalized boutique for each of her 200,000-plus subscribers; Hello Insights helps companies use a data-driven approach to turn Pinterest users into shoppers; Dollar Shave Club's Michael Dubin created the viral marketing video of the year for his subscription shaving gear.
For evolving into the social commerce destination for design wares. Visit Fab's website, and you find something akin to a social network for the design-obsessed. In fact, Fab started off as a social network, so you could say social media is baked into its DNA. CEO Jason Goldberg and cofounder Bradford Shellhammer constantly reimagine Fab, which matured last year from three-day flash sales to dozens of online boutiques of design-centric products for such niches as foodies and pet lovers.
For proving that ads and great content can mix in social media. Last May, the image-heavy, meme-tastic social network entered the fraught world of social media advertising--but demanded that brands act like its users. That meant creating visual, beautiful, fun, shareable content. The response was impressive: By year's end, Tumblr had vaulted into the top 10 most-visited websites in America, with more than 80 million blogs that net more than 700 million visits and almost 18 billion page views.
For being the Match.com for startups. Venture capital was a who-you-know business, until AngelList made a mass introduction. Like online dating, its transparent network connects startups with accredited investors, and now even well-connected entrepreneurs are using it. Success stories include Uber, BranchOut, and GetAround--and its recent partnership with the private exchange SecondMarket lets any accredited investor put as little as $1,000 into a startup.
For speeding up the pace of software development. It's not just a social platform, it's a collaborative platform: Like a coder's wiki, it allows programmers to co-develop and share code. Facebook used it to build a bug-tracking tool; LinkedIn uses it to maintain its People You May Know and Skills & Endorsement features. GitHub also offers custom services for corporations, to let businesses collaborate on code internally.
For reimagining what conversation looks like online. Branch is a place where Twitter conversations go to live better. Where Twitter is an egalitarian free-for-all--anyone can butt in, uninvited, to any public conversation on Twitter, for better or worse--Branch fosters highly-curated conversation. Hosting a Branch is like holding a dinner party or a salon in a glass living room: anyone can watch, but only the chosen can participate. Unlike most other social networks, Branch isn't cloistered away inside its own domain or apps: Branch conversations can be embedded on other websites; chaotic Twitter conversations can be "Branched" into more serene Branch threads; and individual Branch comments can be Branched into separate conversations, as well.
Click Image To Visit Site
COMMENTARY: Tencent Holdings,which operates as QZone, has sharpened its focus on Southeast Asia’s mobile messaging space after it opened a joint-venture in Indonesia, the region’s largest country. The move is aimed at increasing the presence of its WeChatservice among the country’s 249 million population, according to Daily Social.
China's Top 4 Social Networks in 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
The Chinese Internet giant has linked hands with local company MNC Media to create ‘MNC Tencent’ with the express intention of taking the WeChat app — which recently passed 300 million downloads — to the next level, and establishing a pathway to promote other services.
The company has not provided specific market data, but Tencent previously identified Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam as markets were it is seeing promising traction and has the potential for further growth.
China's Top 4 Social Network Demographics and Statistics (Click Image To Enlarge)
Tencent has been busy promoting WeChat in Indonesia through a campaign that has combined local meet-ups with celebrities, visible marketing campaigns and — as of last week — a broadcast TV ad campaign. Daily Social says that these efforts have seen its daily sign-up rate for WeChat hit an impressive 90,000 in the country.I
I love BuzzFeed, Science, ModCloth, Fab and GitHub. They definitely are on specific missions to solve a real problem or fill an interesting need in the marketplace. Not all of them are social networks, but do serve a social purpose. I didn't even know about Science, ModCloth and GitHub until I read Fast Company's post. Well worth checking these out.
If you are looking for angel capital, AngelList should be on the top of your list. If you get turned down, don't feel bad. About 97% of venture founders applying for seed capital get turned down. I got turned down at least three times.
Courtesy of an article dated February 13, 2013 appearing in Fast Companyan article dated February 28, 2013 appearing in TNW The Next Web
WIRED DIRECTLY INTO THEIR NERVOUS SYSTEM, THIS REMARKABLE ROBOTIC HAND WILL SOON ALLOW ONE AMPUTEE TO ACTUALLY TOUCH AND FEEL THINGS AGAIN.
Soon, the first feeling, articulating hand will be transplanted into a living patient (Click Image To Enlarge)
About 50% of amputees don’t use their prosthesis because of relatively basic issues of design--comfort, aesthetic, and controllability. This has led inventor Dean Kamen to famously lament about humanity’s inability to offer our amputees anything better than “a hook on a stick.” Put in those terms, the lack of innovation makes your stomach churn.
It follows up research from 2009 (we believe, seen here) in which a patient was able to feel pin pricks in a tethered robotic hand. He could also wiggle its fingers (Click Image To Enlarge)
But soon, a new bionic hand made by Prensilia may change that. Through a highly experimental test surgery, in a project led by Dr. Silvestro Micera of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, the prosthesis will be wired directly into one test patient’s nervous system, which should enable movement through thought alone, along with the ability for the patient to actually feel what touches his or her mechanical hand.
Today, the hand has been improved. It now has sensors on the palm, fingers, and wrist (Click Image To Enlarge)
The story almost sounds too amazing to be true. But the upcoming surgery is actually a follow up to a 2009 study in which a simpler, fixed model of the hand was wired into a man’s nervous system to provide a sense of touch. It only had basic sensors embedded in the palm, but the patient was able to wiggle his fingers and feel pricks of a needle. Now, the latest wave of hardware and software technology will enable the transplant of a fully articulating, bionic hand (with sensors distributed in each fingertip, the palm, and the wrist). It’s also built with an improved interface that should permit multiple feelings and gestures at once, while the 2009 hand had an extremely limited bandwidth.
That patient will wear the hand for just a month before it’s removed, and then two years later, they’ll receive a more permanent, polished version of the technology.
Plus, it has more bandwidth. So the patient should be able to both feel and move his fingers at the same time (Click Image To Enlarge)
You really can’t overstate the accomplishment at work. Hooked right into the amputee’s nervous system, this hand will be driven by thought alone (and probably a battery pack) (Click Image To Enlarge)
The human hand has always seemed like an invention that only nature could have made over the course of billions of years. Strong enough to crush an orange, deft enough to thread a needle, we’re downright lucky to be born with a pair of the most perfect tools that respond to our every whim. But it’s their ability to feel that elevates them from another tool to part of us, that enables the thousands of tiny compensations we make all day as we interact to the world with softness and force. That’s why this single invention and single surgery is so exciting--it could solve one of the ultimate human-factor issues in medicine. And better still? Researchers say if all goes well, we’ll see widespread clinical adoption of such prostheses in the not-so-distant future.
Successful or not, the hand will live on the patient for just a month, after which time the team will spend the next two years polishing a more final, potentially clinical-ready version (Click Image To Enlarge)
And for the first time in history, we may have developed a halfway decent solution for those missing our most crucial tool, the human hand (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY: Prensilia's amazing robotic hand is the closest thing to a real hand by allowiing amputee's to actually feel what they touch. The sense of touch has been missing from artificial limbs and hands for a long time, and finally it looks like we have overcome that weakness. I don't know how much that Prensilia robotic hand will cost, but I have a feeling that it will be relatively expensive until the company can produce them at scale. Hopefully, federal gencies like Medicare and Medicaid will cover all or most of the cost. The world needs this product because it fills such a huge need among disabled amputee's.
Courtesy of an article dated February 27, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design
NASA artist concept of asteroid 2012 DA14 (Click Image To Enlarge)
The best way for most of us to watch asteroid 2012 DA14 come within 17,200 miles of Earth on Friday, and then recede harmlessly into the cosmos, is to fire up your Web browser and watch the show online. Pictures of the space rock, which is about half the length of a football field, are already starting to roll in.
NASA's experts on near-Earth objects say that the time of closest approach will come at 2:25 p.m. ET, when the asteroid is zooming above the eastern Indian Ocean at a speed of almost 17,500 mph (7.8 kilometers per second). It'll be too dim to see with the naked eye, but observers in Australia, Asia and Europe might be able to follow it with binoculars or small telescopes if they know exactly where to look. (If you want to try it, follow the directions at the bottom of this item.)
Then there are the professionals: Astronomers around the world are tracking 2012 DA14 with optical telescopes and radar dishes to learn more about the asteroid's color, shape, spin and reflectivity. Such data could tell them what the object is made of, and perhaps provide insights into how similar objects could be diverted if they were on a threatening course. Which this one is not.
Experts estimate that asteroids the size of 2012 DA14 hit our planet every 1,200 years or so, exploding with the energy of a 2.5-megaton atomic bomb: The last such impactstruck a remote region of Siberia without warning in 1908, flattening 820 square miles of forest. If an object that big were to hit in just the wrong place, it could wipe out a city. Coincidentally, a much smaller meteoroid came down over Russia on Friday, sparking a fireball and a glass-shattering shock wave.
The size of the asteroid 2012 DA14 in comparison to a football field (Click Image To Enlarge)
Even though the 150-foot-wide (45-meter-wide) asteroid is the biggest object of its kind to be seen coming this close to Earth, its orbit is so well-known that NASA's Near-Earth Object Program can rule out any chance of collision in the foreseeable future. And even though 2012 will fly 5,000 miles closer than satellites in geosynchronous orbit, NASA says its mostly south-to-north orbital path goes through a "sweet spot" that keeps it far away from those satellites — as well as from other spacecraft that are in closer orbits, including the International Space Station.
Thus, astronomers don't expect to see anything go boom on Friday. But they could pick up on some subtler phenomena, such asseismic disturbances in the asteroid that are induced by Earth's gravitational kick, orcharacteristics of the asteroid's spin that are affected by radiation absorption and emission.
This animated set of three images shows 2012 DA14 as it was observed by the Faulkes Telescope South in Australia on Feb. 14 at a distance of 465,000 miles. The asteroid is the moving bright spot in the middle.NASA's website provides details. Credit: LCOGT / E. Gomez / Faulkes South / Remanzacco Observatory. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Radar readings provide the best way to get a fix on the asteroid's shape and spin, in part because observations from multiple radio telescopes can be combined to produce a clearer picture. During 2012 DA14's flyby, radio telescopes in California, New Mexico and Puerto Rico will be tracking the asteroid. NASA's 230-foot (70-meter) dish at Goldstone, Calif., is expected to collect radar imagery good enough to produce a 3-D movie mapping the space rock from all sides.
Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth's north pole. Image credit of NASA-JPL-Caltech (Click Image To Enlarge)
Other telescopes, spread out from Australia to Israel to the Canary Islands to the U.S., will be gathering optical data — and the images from some of those telescopes will be shared on Friday. Here's the viewing schedule:
Noon ET: NASA plans to start streaming near-real-time imagery of the asteroid's flyby, as provided by telescopes in Australia and Europe, weather permitting. Watch JPL video on Ustream.
2 p.m. ET: To mark the time of closest encounter, NASA will present a half-hour program with commentary from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The show will feature computer animations as well as any live or near-real-time imagery that becomes available from telescopes in Australia. Watch video on NASA.gov or Ustream. (NBCNews.com also plans to stream the show.)
3:15 p.m. ET: The Bareket Observatory in Israel says it will air a three-hour webcast featuring imagery from the flyby. Static images of the asteroid and its celestial surroundings will be refreshed every 30 to 60 seconds. Watch Bareket's webcast.
5 p.m. ET: The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 will present live video of the asteroid flyby from a telescope in Italy, weather permitting. Video site: Watch Virtual Telescope Project's webcast.
9 p.m. ET: A video feed of the flyby from a telescope at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will be streamed for three hours. During the live-streaming event, viewers can ask researchers questions about the flyby via Twitter or the Ustream chat window. Watch Marshall's Ustream channel.
Got any other websites worth watching? Or any asteroid questions you're wondering about? Feel free to share them in your comments below.
COMMENTARY:
Courtesy of an article dated February 15, 2013 appearing in NBC News Cosmic Log and an article date February 12, 2013 appearing in Space.com and an article dated February 14, 2013 appearing in Space.com and an article dated February 15, 2013 appearing in NASA.gov
Picture of the meteorite as it explodes into a huge fireball and sends a huge shockwave and rains debris down on Chelyabinsk in the Russian Urals (Click Image To Enlarge)
Russia’s Urals region has been rocked by a meteorite explosion in the stratosphere. The impact wave damaged several buildings, and blew out thousands of windows amid frigid winter weather. Hundreds have sought medical attention for minor injuries.
Around 950 people have sought medical attention in Chelyabinsk alone because of the disaster, the region's governor Mikhail Yurevich told RIA Novosti. Over 110 of them have been hospitalized and two of them are in heavy condition. Among the injured there are 159 children, Emergency ministry reported.
Army units found three meteorite debris impact sites, two of which are in an area near Chebarkul Lake, west of Chelyabinsk. The third site was found some 80 kilometers further to the northwest, near the town of Zlatoust. One of the fragments that struck near Chebarkul left a crater six meters in diameter.
Servicemembers from the tank brigade that found the crater have confirmed that background radiation levels at the site are normal.
A hole in Chebarkul Lake made by meteorite debris. Photo by Chebarkul town head Andrey Orlov. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Police officers, environmentalists and EMERCOM experts examine small 0.5-1 cm pieces of black matter left by the meteorite at the site of a meteorite hit in the Chelyabinsk Region (Click Image To Enlarge)
Experts working at the site of the impact told Lifenews tabloid that the fragment is most likely solid, and consists of rock and iron.
A local fisherman told police he found a large hole in the lake’s ice, which could be a result of a meteorite impact. The site was immediately sealed off by police, a search team is now waiting for divers to arrive and explore the bottom of the lake.
Samples of water taken from the lake have not revealed any excessive radioactivity or foreign material.
Russian space agency Roskosmos has confirmed the object that crashed in the Chelyabinsk region is a meteorite:
“According to preliminary estimates, this space object is of non-technogenic origin and qualifies as a meteorite. It was moving at a low trajectory with a speed of about 30 km/s.”
According to estimates by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the space object weighed about 10 tons before entering Earth’s atmosphere.
A bright flash was seen in the Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions, Russia’s Republic of Bashkiria and in northern Kazakhstan.
The Russian army has joined the rescue operation. Radiation, chemical and biological protection units have been put on high alert. Since the explosion occurred several kilometers above the Earth, a large ground area must be thoroughly checked for radiation and other threats.
According to preliminary reports, the worst damage on the ground in Chelyabinsk was at a zinc factory, the walls and roof of which were partially destroyed by an impact wave. The city's Internet and mobile service were reportedly interrupted because of the damage inflicted near the factory.
Chelyabinsk administration’s website said nearly 3,000 buildings were damaged to varying extents by the meteor shower in the city, including 34 medical facilities and 361 schools and kindergartens. The total amount of window glass shattered amounts to 100,000 square meters, the site said, citing city administration head Sergey Davydov. The ministry also said that no local power stations or civil aircraft were damaged by the meteorite shower, and that “all flights proceed according to schedule.”
Buildings were left without gas because facilities in the city had also been damaged, an Emergency Ministry spokesperson said, according to Russia 24 news channel.
The Emergency Ministry reported that 20,000 rescue workers are operating in the region. Three aircraft were deployed to survey the area and locate other possible impact locations.
The trail of a falling object is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, on February 15, 2013.(AFP Photo - Oleg Kargopolov) (Click Image To Enlarge)
The regional Emergency Ministry denied previous unconfirmed reports by local media that the meteorite was shot by the military air defenses.
Witnesses said the explosion was so loud that it seemed like an earthquake and thunder had struck at the same time, and that there were huge trails of smoke across the sky. Others reported seeing burning objects fall to earth.
A spokesperson for the Urals regional Emergency Ministry center claimed it sent out a mass SMS warning residents about a possible meteorite shower. However, eyewitnesses said they either never received it, or got the message after the explosion had occurred. The Emergency Ministry has since denied sending out the SMS warning, and said the spokesperson that spread the false information “will be fired.”
Picture of windows damaged right after the impact of meteorite in Chelyabinsk (Click Image To Enlarge)
This picture taken by Pavel Berlet shows office damage in the city of Chelyabins (Click Image To Enlarge)
Classes for all Chelyabinsk schools have been canceled, mostly due to broken windows. Institute students have been dismissed until next Monday. Authorities also ordered all kindergartens with broken windows to return children to their families.
Police in the Chelyabinsk region are reportedly on high alert, and have begun ‘Operation Fortress’ in order to protect vital infrastructure.
Office buildings in downtown Chelyabinsk have been evacuated. An emergency message published on the website of the Chelyabinsk regional authority urged residents to pick up their children from school and remain at home if possible.
This picture shows exterior window damage to a building in Chelyabinsk. Photo courtesy Pavel Berlet (Click Image To Enlarge)
A man walks past a building with shattered windows after a meteorite shock wave in Chelyabinsk, Urals, Russia (Click Image To Enlarge)
The shockwave from the meteorite blast was so powerful that n some cases the entire window frames were torn from the windows (Click Image To Enlarge)
Those in Chelyabinsk who had their windows smashed are scrambling to cover the openings with anything available – the temperature in the city is currently -6°C.
Chelyabinsk regional governor Mikhail Yurevich said that preserving the city’s central heating system is authorities’ primary goal.
The governor said in and address to city residents.
“Do not panic, this is an ordinary situation we can manage in a couple of days.”
Background radiation levels in Chelyabinsk remain unchanged, the Emergency Ministry reported.
Local zinc factory was damaged the severest, some of its walls collapsing (Photo from Twitter.com user @TimurKhorev) (Click Image To Enlarge)
Screenshot from YouTube user Gregor Grimm (Click Image To Enlarge)
Residents of the town of Emanzhilinsk, some 50 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, said they saw a flying object that suddenly burst into flames, broke apart and fell to earth, and that a black cloud had been seen hanging above the town. Witnesses in Chelyabinsk said the city’s air smells like gunpowder.
Many locals reported that the explosion rattled their houses and smashed windows. “This explosion, my ears popped, windows were smashed… phone doesn’t work,” Evgeniya Gabun wrote on Twitter.
Twitter user Katya Grechannikova reported.
“My window smashed, I am all shaking! Everybody says that a plane crashed.”
Bukreeva Olga wrote on Twitter.
“My windows were not smashed, but I first thought that my house is being dismantled, then I thought it was a UFO, and my eventual thought was an earthquake.”
The Mayak nuclear complex near the town of Ozersk was not affected by the incident, according to reports. Mayak, one of the world’s biggest nuclear facilities that used to house plutonium production reactors and a reprocessing plant, is located 72 kilometers northwest of Chelyabinsk.
NASA scientists said that the incident is not connected to the approach of 2012 DA14, which measures 45 to 95 meters in diameter and will be passing by Earth tonight at around 19:25 GMT, at the record close distance of 27,000 kilometers.
Photo from Twitter.com user @varlamov (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY:
Another Tunguska event?
The incident in Chelyabinsk bears a strong resemblance to the 1908 Tunguska event – an exceptionally powerful explosion in Siberia believed to have been caused by a fragment of a comet or meteor.
According to estimates, the energy of the Tunguska blast may have been as high as 50 megatons of TNT, equal to a nuclear explosion. Some 80 million trees were leveled over a 2,000-square-kilometer area. The Tunguska blast remains one of the most mysterious events in history, prompting a wide array of hypotheses on its cause, including a black hole passing through Earth and the wreck of an alien spacecraft.
Trees were flattened from the blast and shockwave from the meteorite that exploded above Tunguska in northern Siberia in 1908 (Click Image To Enlarge)
It is believed that if the Tunguska event had happened 4 hours later, due to the rotation of the Earth it would have completely destroyed the city of Vyborg and significantly damaged St. Petersburg.
When a similar, though less powerful, unexplained explosion happened in Brazil in 1930, it was named the ‘Brazilian Tunguska.’ The Tunguska event also prompted debate and research into preventing or mitigating asteroid impacts.
Courtey of an article dated February 15, 2013 appearing in RT.com
NASA's Curiosity rover finds a shiny piece of metal on Mars (Click Image To Enlarge)
The Curiosity rover on Mars has been keeping itself quite busy lately, most recently boring into Mars’ red surface in order to find signs of life. However, in its downtime, the rover likes to take a lot of photos,including self-portraits, but this time around, Curiosity came across a strange chunk of metal sticking out of the ground? What could it be?
NASA's Curiosity rover finds what appears to be a shinny pice of metal protruding from the ground on the planet Mars (Click Image To Enlarge)
The photo was snapped on January 30 using one of the rover’s MastCam cameras to get shots of the landscape, and it ended up getting this odd piece of metal in the frame. NASA’s scientists aren’t 100% sure what it is, but they think it may be a chunk from a meteorite, or possibly a chunk of ore that became exposed by some sort of erosion.
It’s said that the object is only a half-centimeter tall, so it’s extremely tiny compared to how big it looks in the image. NASA hasn’t said whether or not it will check out the piece of metal, or if they’ll just ignore it and continue on with their planned experiments. After all, they do have more holes to drill.
However, while some think it’s simply a tiny piece of metal, Elisabetta Bonora of Alive Universe Images, mentions that the hunk of metal takes up about 35 pixels in the image. Taking into account the camera’s resolution and the distance between the rover and the object, the size of the chunk of metal may actually be larger than just 0.5 cm — it’s possible that it’s up to a foot tall. At this point, we’ll never know, unless NASA decides to investigate, but it’s very possible they just might let it be and continue on as scheduled.
COMMENTARY: If NASA's Curiosity rover has found a real piece of metal protruding from the ground, is the structure a natural piece of metal, or something left on Mars by intelligent beings? The picture was taken on January 30, 2013, so I must assume that NASA has dug out that piece of "metal" by now and analyzed it with Curiosity's onboard laboratory. Keep tuned for more.
Courtesy of an article dated February 9, 2013 appearing in Slash Gear
EVEN THE TOUGHEST, SMARTEST ASTRONAUT LOOKS SILLY GETTING DRESSED FOR SPACE. BUT A NEW SUIT DESIGN WILL MAKE THE PROCESS NEAR-INSTANTANEOUS.
If you stepped into the vacuum of space in whatever you’re wearing now, you actually might be okay. You won’t pass out. Your blood won’t boil, nor would it instantly freeze. (Our skin and circulatory systems actually hold in our gas and gunk pretty well.) So long as you make no attempts to hold your breath as the air exits your lungs, you might even enjoy the moment. But you’d only have about 30 seconds before you began sustaining long-lasting injuries. As NASA once explained:
"Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly "the bends," certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes, you’re dying. The limits are not really known."
To view interview with Amy Ross, Space Suit Engineer, Part 2 click HERE.
So in other words, while you could walk in space without a suit, you probably shouldn’t try. Which is precisely why NASA works so hard on refining its space suits.
The Z-1 is their latest, and it’s designed for planetary exploration, right down to the Buzz Lightyear paintjob.
Its innovations are largely in the flexible joints, fitted with bearings in the waist, hips, upper legs, and ankles (to make retrieving rock samples and running from alien species more feasible), along with all of the new materials found in the “heavily engineered” inner suit, which include urethane-coated nylon to retain air and polyester to help the suit hold its shape.
But the Z-1’s pièce de résistance is its inventive back port, which allows the suit to latch into a planetary rover as part of its outer shell. This port also means that astronauts can simply slide from the vehicle into the suit, getting dressed instantly before detaching and walking on the surface of another planet. Just as important, the suit is already perfectly pressurized, too, meaning that astronauts can avoid some of the deep-sea-diver-esque pressurization routines that make trips outside the ship such a hassle.
Sadly, the Z-1 won’t actually make its way into space. But as it’s polished into Z-2 and Z-3 forms, the new Z suit will eventually reach realization in 2017.
COMMENTARY: NASA's Z-1 space suite is the first new space suit design in 20 years - and has turned it into a hatchback. It's important to keep in mind that the present Z-1 is an early prototype and a more finished prototype will not be ready until 2014. As hard as I tried, I could not find a price for the Z-1 space suit, but you can bet that they will be expensive considering all the added technological innovations incorporated into the suit. The following infographic highlights the key features of the Z-1 and compares the suit with both the Apollo and NASA space suits in use since 1982.
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space.
Scientists refer to this new region as a magnetic highway for charged particles because our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. This connection allows lower-energy charged particles that originate from inside our heliosphere -- or the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself -- to zoom out and allows higher-energy particles from outside to stream in. Before entering this region, the charged particles bounced around in all directions, as if trapped on local roads inside the heliosphere.
The heliopause marks the outerost edge of our solar system's heliosphere before entering interstellar space (Click Image To Enlarge)
The Voyager team infers this region is still inside our solar bubble because the direction of the magnetic field lines has not changed. The direction of these magnetic field lines is predicted to change when Voyager breaks through to interstellar space. The new results were described at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Monday.
Voyager spacecraft showing major subsystems (Click Image To Enlarge)
Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena said.
"Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway. We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager."
The Voyager cover protects the Gold Record ans is made from aluminum with an electro-plating of the isotope uranium-238, which has a half-life of 4.51 billion years.(Click Image To Enlarge)
Voyager's Gold Record is a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth (Click Image To Enlarge)
Explanation of Voyager Recording Cover Diagram (Click Image To Enlarge)
Since December 2004, when Voyager 1 crossed a point in space called the termination shock, the spacecraft has been exploring the heliosphere's outer layer, called the heliosheath. In this region, the stream of charged particles from the sun, known as the solar wind, abruptly slowed down from supersonic speeds and became turbulent. Voyager 1's environment was consistent for about five and a half years. The spacecraft then detected that the outward speed of the solar wind slowed to zero.
The intensity of the magnetic field also began to increase at that time.
Voyager data from two onboard instruments that measure charged particles showed the spacecraft first entered this magnetic highway region on July 28, 2012. The region ebbed away and flowed toward Voyager 1 several times. The spacecraft entered the region again Aug. 25 and the environment has been stable since.
said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of the low-energy charged particle instrument, based at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
"If we were judging by the charged particle data alone, I would have thought we were outside the heliosphere. But we need to look at what all the instruments are telling us and only time will tell whether our interpretations about this frontier are correct."
Spacecraft data revealed the magnetic field became stronger each time Voyager entered the highway region; however, the direction of the magnetic field lines did not change.
Data from Voyager 1 show an abrupt drop in solar ions (top) at the same time that the spacecraft detected an increased number of cosmic rays (bottom) from interstellar space (Click Image To Enlarge)
Leonard Burlaga, a Voyager magnetometer team member based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md said.
"We are in a magnetic region unlike any we've been in before -- about 10 times more intense than before the termination shock -- but the magnetic field data show no indication we're in interstellar space. The magnetic field data turned out to be the key to pinpointing when we crossed the termination shock. And we expect these data will tell us when we first reach interstellar space."
Voyager 1 and 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977. At least one of the spacecraft has visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object, about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from the sun. The signal from Voyager 1 takes approximately 17 hours to travel to Earth. Voyager 2, the longest continuously operated spacecraft, is about 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away from our sun. While Voyager 2 has seen changes similar to those seen by Voyager 1, the changes are much more gradual. Scientists do not think Voyager 2 has reached the magnetic highway.
The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
COMMENTARY: NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. In it, the wind of charged particles streaming out from our sun has calmed, our solar system's magnetic field has piled up, and higher-energy particles from inside our solar system appear to be leaking out into interstellar space. Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said.
"Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system. Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out what the space between stars is really like."
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Although Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space. In the latest data, the direction of the magnetic field lines has not changed, indicating Voyager is still within the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. The data do not reveal exactly when Voyager 1 will make it past the edge of the solar atmosphere into interstellar space, but suggest it will be in a few months to a few years.
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After 35 years of space travel, the twin Voyager planetary probes are nearing the very edge of Earth’s solar system. They will become the first man-made objects to travel between the stars.
Voyager 2 was launched first, on Aug. 20, 1977. Voyager 1 followed on Sept. 5, 1977. This was done because Voyager 2 would travel on a shorter path and would arrive at each planet ahead of Voyager 1.
Each Voyager spacecraft carries a golden record attached to its hull. The record is a 12-inch (30 cm) gold-plated copper disc containing sounds and images of Earth. If the Voyagers are eventually found by alien life forms, a diagram engraved into the record cover explains how to play the record.
As of mid-2012, both Voyager space probes are on the outskirts of our solar system, in a region called the “scattered disc.” Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object at about 11 billion miles from Earth, twice as far as the dwarf planet Pluto. The Voyagers are expected to soon cross the heliopause, considered the boundary between Earth’s solar system and interstellar space. Both Voyagers continue to radio data back to Earth, and their nuclear batteries, though weakening, continue to provide electrical power.
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