Gizmorama
December 15, 2010
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Good Morning,
The first article perfectly summarizes the capacity of human
accomplishment. Read all about a U.S. space probe that is
about to bridge the physical gap between our solar system and
interstellar space!
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Voyager approaches edge of solar system
PASADENA, Calif. - The U.S. space probe Voyager 1, almost
10.8 billion miles from Earth, is close to leaving the solar
system and entering interstellar space, officials say.
Thirty-three years after its 1977 launch to survey the outer
planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, a task it com-
pleted in 1989, Voyager 1 is still returning scientific data
to Earth. "When Voyager was launched, the space age itself
was only 20 years old, so there was no basis to know that
spacecraft could last so long," Voyager project scientist
Edward Stone told BBC News. "We had no idea how far we would
have to travel to get outside the solar system," he said.
"We now know that in roughly five years, we should be outside
for the first time." The spacecraft is headed in the general
direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Sustained
by its radioactive power pack, the probe's instruments con-
tinue to function and send data to Earth, its vast distance
away causing the radio messages to have a travel time of
about 16 hours. Although launched first, sister spacecraft
Voyager 2 was put on a slower path and is currently just over
8.6 billion miles from Earth.
Camera drones used to track arctic seals
BOULDER, Colo. - Cameras on unmanned aircraft flying over
the arctic are assessing declining sea ice and tracking seals
as they haul up onto ice floes, U.S. researchers say. The
project is monitoring ice and seals in remote areas without
putting pilots and observers at risk, Elizabeth Weatherhead
of the University of Colorado at Boulder said in a release
from the university Tuesday. The team is using a camera drone
with a 10-foot wingspan that is owned and operated by the
University of Alaska. Tracking the seals is important as the
Arctic rapidly warms as a result of human-produced greenhouse
gases, climate scientists say. Warming temperatures and sea
ice loss concern biologists because they are affecting some
Arctic marine and terrestrial mammals. "Because ice is dimin-
ishing more rapidly in some areas than others, we are trying
to focus on what areas and types of ice the seals need for
their survival," Peter Boveng, leader of the Polar Ecosystems
Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, said. "By
finding the types of ice they prefer, we can keep track of
that ice and see how it holds up as the Arctic sea ice extent
shrinks." The four species of Arctic seals the research team
says they most want to track are the bearded, ringed, spotted
and ribbon seals -- each of which rely in some way on sea ice
for breeding, resting and as a safe haven from predators.
Study: City lights make city smog
LOS ANGELES - The bright nighttime lights of major metro-
politan cities are making air pollution worse, a study by
U.S. researchers indicates. Scientists with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the glare thrown
up into the sky interferes with chemical reactions that would
normally help clean the nighttime air of the fumes emitted by
motor cars and factories during the day, the BBC reported
Tuesday. A special form of nitrogen oxide, called the nitrate
radical, breaks down chemicals that form smog and ozone. This
natural cleansing normally occurs in the hours of darkness
because the radical only shows up at night, being destroyed
by sunlight, the researchers say. Measurements taken over
Los Angeles show the energy from all the nighttime light over
the city is also suppressing the radical. The lights may be
10,000 times dimmer than the Sun, researchers say, but the
effect is still significant. "Our first results indicate that
city lights can slow down the night-time cleansing by up to
7 percent and they can also increase the starting chemicals
for ozone pollution the next day by up to 5 percent," NOAA's
Harald Stark said.
'Cryovolcano' discovered on Saturn moon
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - A possible ice volcano more than a half-
mile high has been found on Saturn's moon Titan, U.S.
researchers say. Named Sotra and surrounded by giant sand
dunes, it is thought to be the largest in a string of
several volcanoes that once spewed slushy ice, liquid and
gases from deep beneath the moon's surface, NewScientist.com
reported Tuesday. "Ice at outer solar system temperatures is
very rigid," Randy Kirk, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geolog-
ical Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., said. "Ice at close to its
melting point is soft. What would be a glacier on Earth would
be a volcano on a body that's made of that same material.
It's the difference between the cake and the frosting."
The researchers cannot be sure if Sotra is active, but called
the discovery the best evidence yet far for a cryovolcano,
or ice volcano, on Titan. "The classical volcano everybody
thinks of when you say the word is a mountain with a crater
on it and lava flows coming out of it," Kirk said. "That's
what we've found on Titan."
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