Cool science stuff

A new theoretical approach for space travel propulsion:

http://boingboing.net/2014/11/24/the-quest-for-a-reactionless-s.html

 

Bumping for news on the New Horizons probe. It's started its approach to Pluto and is taking pictures that should be made public in a couple of weeks. Flyby of Pluto and Charon is in mid-July.

NASA spacecraft almost to Pluto: Smile for the camera! - Yahoo News

It's been far too long since we've had something like this. I remember in the 80s, with Voyager 2, it was constantly in the news. It captured the imagination of my 12-year-old self. Since then, it's like no one cares what's out there any more. The drive to explore faded pretty quickly, which is sad.

 

Big rumblings from Uranus!!

BBC - Earth - Strange mega storms sweep Uranus

 

— said Brian Williams to his daughter, never ever ever, GODDAMM CAN WE TALK FOOTBALL OR SOMETHING?

< ahem. And now the news. >

 

So cool.
This is a great time to be alive. We're discovering things we never knew about Uranus and soon about Pluto.
Just very cool.

 

More space stuff. An asteroid a third of a mile wide will pass close enough to Earth tonight and Tuesday (745,000 miles) to be able to see with binoculars or a telescope. Unless you're in the Northeast, of course.

Giant asteroid set to buzz Earth, poses no threat - Yahoo News

 

I am a bit reluctant to post this, because what I am about to share is a time waster, but it is really cool.

Play golf on Saturn's moons: (instructions are on the website)

Sector 6: Golf Sector 6

You have to factor in the reduced gravity so that you don't hit your ball into orbit. Goal is to get the ball into a specified crater. And of course, it uses actual images of the moons.

I got tipped off about this several years ago, when the Cassini mission went to Saturn. So, this golf game has been around for awhile, but is probably not well known.

Enjoy. Let me know what you think about it. And don't get addicted.

 

I am a massive science nerd who is constantly sending links to cool science stories and videos to his kids (who often ignore them). Maybe I'll start putting some of them up here.

Star with this one on what happens when you freeze liquid nitrogen solid:

What Happens When Liquid Nitrogen Freezes - Business Insider

And while New Horizons approaches Pluto, the Dawn probe is nearing another dwarf planet -- Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt:

As Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, things start to look &apos;rough&apos; - LA Times


And astronomers seem to have discovered a ring system on an exoplanet for the first time, and it appears to be a gigantic ring system:

And finally (for now), you know that asteroid that came close to earth the other night? It has its own little moon:

Near-Earth asteroid has its own little moon in tow - CNET

 

Awesome.
Screw your kids. Post all that stuff here.

 

OK, here are a couple I sent them over the past few weeks.

Start with the most mind-blowing one. You've heard of cosmic "wormholes," those tunnels through spacetime that theoretically could be used as shortcuts to travel to faraway points in the universe (like in the movie "Interstellar)? Well, according to a paper recently published in a physics journal, in theory, our galaxy could be a gigantic wormhole, and that wormhole could theoretically be navigable: In theory, the Milky Way could be a 'galactic transport system'

Also, the sun has a hole in its corona (atmosphere) bigger than Jupiter: Coronal Hole Spotted On The Sun Is Hundreds Of Times Bigger Than The Earth

NASA turned its deep-space X-ray observatory at the sun and caught some spectacular images: Stunning X-Ray Portrait Of The Sun Snapped By NASA's NuSTAR Space Telescope

And a new one -- apparently, Edgar Allan Poe figured out the universe began with the Big Bang, right down to many of the details, some 80 years before science did: How Did Edgar Allan Poe Manage To Describe The Big Bang In 1848?

Edit: Sorry, inserted the wrong link for the EAP story! The right one is in there now.

 

Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.

 

Hey, you know that Big Bang thing? Well, according to this new theory, never mind: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning

The idea is that some physicists applied a quantum method of measurement to equations that describe the expansion of the universe through general relativity and found that it does not predict a Big Bang singularity. Which actually is good, because the laws of physics break down when you get to the singularity.


Also, researchers have finally figured out how coral snake venom works, and it could have implications in studying epilepsy: Coral snake venom reveals a unique route to lethality