| Wednesday - May 14, 2008
Good Morning All,
News and Comments....
Let's continue our travels in Space with these two items from Rhonda
Tesch:
"First up, the World Wide Telescope:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-12WWTPR.mspx
WorldWide Telescope Brings Space Exploration to Earth
A service free of charge from Microsoft lets students and lifelong
learners tour the night sky using high-resolution images from the
world's best land- and space-based telescopes.
REDMOND, Wash. - May 12, 2008 - The final frontier got a bit closer
today as Microsoft Corp. officially launched the public beta of
its
WorldWide Telescope, which is now available at
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org. WorldWide Telescope is a rich
Web
application that brings together imagery from the best ground- and
space-based observatories across the world to allow people to easily
explore the night sky through their computers. WorldWide Telescope
has
been eagerly anticipated by the astronomical and educational communities
as a compelling astronomical resource for students and lifelong
learners, and as a way to make science fun for children.
"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education
that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe," said
Bill
Gates, chairman of Microsoft. "By combining terabytes of incredible
imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving
through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the
door to
new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is
that it
will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and
help
researchers in their quest to better understand the universe."
The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services
created with the Microsoft high-performance Visual Experience Engine,
which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with
rich
image environments. WorldWide Telescope stitches together terabytes
of
high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in
a way
that relates to their actual position in the sky. People can freely
browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage
of
a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers
and
educators at major universities and planetariums.
"WorldWide Telescope brings to life a dream that many of us in Microsoft
Research have pursued for years, and we are proud to release this
as a
free service to anyone who wants to explore the universe," said
Curtis
Wong, manager of Microsoft's Next Media Research Group. "Where is
Saturn
in the sky, in relation to the moon? Does the Milky Way really have
a
supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy? With the universe
at your fingertips, you can discover the answers for yourself."
The service goes well beyond the simple browsing of images. Users
can
choose which telescope they want to look through, including the
Hubble
Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer
Space
Telescope or others. They can view the locations of planets in the
night
sky - in the past, present or future. They can view the universe
through
different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other
parts of the galaxy. Taken as a whole, the application provides
a
top-to-bottom view of the science of astronomy.
"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation
clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover
the
cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago,"
said
Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. "I believe this new creation from Microsoft will have
a
profound impact on the way we view the universe."
Microsoft Research has formed close ties with members of the academic,
education and scientific communities to make WorldWide Telescope
a
reality. NASA along with other organizations coordinated with Microsoft
Research to provide the imagery, provide feedback on the application
from a scientific point of view, and help turn WorldWide Telescope
into
a rich learning application.
Microsoft's mission to make the universe accessible to everyone
was
begun years ago by renowned Microsoft Senior Researcher Jim Gray.
WorldWide Telescope is built on top of Gray's pioneering development
of
large-scale, high-performance online databases including SkyServer
and
his contributions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project to
map a
large part of the Northern sky outside of the galaxy. Microsoft
Research
is releasing WorldWide Telescope as a service free of charge to
the
astronomy and education communities as a tribute to Gray with the
hope
that it will inspire and empower kids of all ages to explore and
understand the universe in an unprecedented way.
Second, NASA would like volunteers to search thru hi-res photos looking
for evidence/wreckage of the Mars Polar Lander:
http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn13884&print=true
Volunteers asked to help find dead spacecraft on Mars
20:09 12 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Hazel Muir
The HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has
already
spotted spacecraft on the surface of Mars. These images show the
rover
Opportunity close to Mars's Victoria Crater in 2006 (Image:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona) Scientists have invited
the
public to trawl high-resolution images for signs of NASA's Mars
Polar
Lander, which went silent on arrival at Mars in 1999. Finding the
wreckage might explain why the mission failed.
"If we can find the Mars Polar Lander and be convinced we understand
what we're looking at, it might provide some clues as to what went
wrong," says Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson,
US.
"There could be lessons there that are applicable to future landers."
The Mars Polar Lander was supposed to study the Martian climate
as well
as soil and ice close to the planet's south pole. But mission
controllers lost contact with the probe when it landed. An investigation
suggested it probably smashed onto the surface at high speed because
the
engines that should have slowed the craft's descent shut down too
quickly.
Scientists thought they saw the dead lander in images taken by the
Mars
Global Surveyor satellite in 2000, but these turned out to be a
mirage.
Now images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are offering
another
chance for the probe to be found.
Southern summer
In mid-2007, an instrument called the High Resolution Imaging Science
Experiment (HiRISE) on the orbiter snapped sharp images of about
half of
the likely area where the failed lander touched down. "This was
also the
southern summer on Mars, so the site was well illuminated," says
McEwen,
who leads the HiRISE team.
Now, HiRISE software developer Guy McArthur, also at the University
of
Arizona, has invited the public to scan these images for signs of
the
Mars Polar Lander. It's a huge challenge because although there
are only
18 images, each of them is enormous - typically 1.6 billion pixels.
"If your computer screen is 1000 by 1000, that means you need 1600
screenshots to view one image," says McEwen. "On the HiRISE team,
we
haven't put much effort into looking for this - we're too busy with
other things."
The lander certainly won't be easy to spot. "We just don't know
exactly
what it will look like," says McEwen. He estimates that any spacecraft
features that might be visible - the lander, its heat shield or
the
backshell with a parachute attached, if the parachute actually opened
-
will only be a few pixels across.
Years gone by and the local landscape is troublesomely speckled
with
bright and dark features roughly the same size as the spacecraft
components. "It's a terrible place to look for things like this,"
says
McEwen. "And years have gone by, so some dust will have settled
- it may
not stand out now."
However, keen volunteers can take some tips on what to look for
from Tim
Parker at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has analyzed HiRISE images
of
other spacecraft components on Mars.
NASA is hoping for a better outcome on 25 May, when its Phoenix
Mars
Lander is due to touch down on Mars. The lander uses similar
technologies to the Mars Polar Lander, but its design has been
thoroughly tested for any flaws."
The Light Thought of The Day...
No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
Closing Thoughts...
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
That's it for today, remember tomorrow is the start toward the weekend,
and be careful out there,
Roger
Copyright 2008 by Roger M. Tener, with individual
rights reverting back
to contributors after this one time use.
All opinions and versions of
events expressed by contributors are their
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