Monday, September 10, 2012

Carnival of space #266

Hi and welcome to a new issue of "Carnival of space" your weekly gateway to astronomy and space articles and news.



Cheap Astronomy delivers a fine podcast on the Fine Structure Constant, described by Richard Feynman as 'the greatest damn mystery in physics'. 

Nextbigfuture send us 3 articles the first one is dealing with NASA is funding development into aneutronic nuclear fusion for space propulsion.
The second item from Nextbigfuture is about the lunar space elevator kickstarter which has raised over $70000 and still had one week to go. By the weekend it will still have a few days left and should be over $80,000 and the way to passing the $100,000 level. At the $100,000 - back in business for real, have a series of experiements and $250,000 - try for to climb to the limit of balloon technology , about 20 miles / 30 kilometers.
The last from Nextbigfuture is about NASA NIAC phase 1 project Water Walls (WW). Water walls takes an approach to providing a life support system that is biologically and chemically passive, using mechanical systems only for plumbing to pump fluids such as gray water from the source to the point of processing. The core processing technology of Water Walls is FORWARD OSMOSIS (FO). Each cell of the WW system consists of a polyethylene bag or tank with one or more FO membranes to provide the chemical processing of waste. WW provides four principal functions of processing cells in four different types plus the common function of radiation shielding.

As school year is starting in many places around the globe, the post-Labor Day week got us thinking about school and education as it relates to Chandra and X-ray astrophysics.

Weirdwarp has an article about Voyager 1 which has travelled the furthest any -made object has travelled in a straight line (well almost a straight line). We will probably and hopefully overtake it one day with future space technology but today it can bask in glory.
Voyager Model.
Most of Mars interest is focused on Curiosity, but there are other rovers doing great job on our red neighbor. The Meridian Journal tells us about Opportunity rover is examining an interesting rock outcrop which may contain some of the long-sought clay deposits.


Peter Lake takes a look at the newly discovered 375m Asteroid that will pass at about 7.4 lunar distances on the 14th. It is a little unusual these days to find such a big asteroid less than three weeks before its closest approach.


The second episode of The Cosmic Ray Show will air on September 11th, 2012 at 10:00 PM Pacific!
Our special guest for our second episode is Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. In addition to his scientific duties, Dr. Stern is also a founder of a new start-up, Uwingu. Uwingu aims to help fund space education, exploration and research.



This is all for this week, may your days be long and your nights clear. The next new moon will designate the newly Hebrew year (5773), best regards and happy new year "Shana Tova" to all of you.