 SlashGear (@slashgear)3/6/12 9:30 PM Facebook access becoming mandatory part of job, college applications is.gd/xVxBWc #tech #slashgear |
"This image of Jupiter and its moons Io and Ganymede was acquired by amateur astronomer Damian Peach on Sept. 12, 2010, when Jupiter was close to opposition. South is up and the "Great Red Spot" is visible in the image. Ground-based astronomy will play a vital role in the success of NASA's Juno mission. Because Jupiter has such a dynamic atmosphere, images from amateur astronomers will assist the JunoCam instrument team predict what features will be visible when the camera's images are taken. With its suite of science instruments, the Juno spacecraft will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map the planet's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere and observe the planet's auroras."credit.
 PhysOrg Science News (@physorg_com)3/5/12 4:17 PM Scientists search for source of creativity: Calling it a 'right brain' phenomenon is too simple, res... tw.medicalxpress.com/250186761 |
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"Five hand drawn sketches of Jupiter were used to create this beautifully detailed flat map of the ruling gas giant's turbulent cloud tops. Made with colored pencils at the eyepiece of a 16 inch diameter telescope, the original drawings are about 5 inches (12.5 cm) in diameter. The drawn planisphere map dimensions are 16x8 inches (40x20 cm). Observing on different dates in November and December of 2011, astronomical artist Fred Burgeot has relied on Jupiter's rotation to cover the planet's complete circumference. Digital animator Pascal Chauvet has also translated Burgeot's drawings into an intriguing video (vimeo), synthesizing a telescopic view of the rotating planet with a tilt and phase appropriate for the observing dates. The video includes the Galilean moons moving along their orbits, beginning with Ganymede and Io casting shadows as they glide in front of Jupiter, followed by Europa and Callisto passing behind the planet's banded disk."credit.
| PhysOrg Science News (@physorg_com) 3/2/12 7:45 AM Oxygen discovered at Saturn's moon Dione t.co/hS5K6ecg |
| PhysOrg Science News (@physorg_com) 3/1/12 3:22 PM Is sharing the key to advanced society? tw.physorg.com/249837875 |
One hundred and twenty million years ago, this fearsome creature roamed the skies above China. This recently discovered skull is the first evidence of this species of pterosaur (a flying reptile, not a dinosaur) that scientists have found, though similar fossils have been unearthed halfway around the world in Brazil. The new species name, Guidraco venator, is a portmanteau of Chinese and Latin words together meaning "ghost dragon hunter." Those dramatic teeth have got scientists talking about how the heck it ate: did it hunt actively for the fish whose bones are in those clumps of poop ("copr" stands for "coprolite") scattered around it, or did it scavenge? Either way, it looks like a creature that gets whatever it wants, when it wants it.[via Wired]
 New Scientist (@newscientist)2/29/12 1:34 PM Neanderthals were ancient mariners - and may have beaten modern humans to the seas bit.ly/way6VQ |
"Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks small here, pictured to the right of the gas giant in this Cassini spacecraft view. Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) is in the upper right. Saturn's rings appear across the top of the image, and they cast a series of shadows onto the planet across the middle of the image. The moon Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears as a tiny white speck above the rings in the far upper right of the image. The shadow cast by Prometheus can be seen as a small black speck on the planet on the far left of the image, between the shadows cast by the main rings and the thin F ring. The shadow of the moon Pandora also can be seen on the planet south of the shadows of all the rings, below the center of the image towards the right side of the planet. Pandora is not shown here. This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 1 degree below the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 5, 2012 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 426,000 miles (685,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees. Image scale is 23 miles (37 kilometers) per pixel on Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo."
 SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom)2/27/12 7:27 AM Big Asteroid Could Pose Threat to Earth in 2040, Scientists Say bit.ly/x8XpqE |
"Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons. Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea and Titan. North on the moons is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left. The limb, or edge of the visible disk, of Rhea is slightly overexposed in this view. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 10, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 810,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Titan and 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel on Rhea."credit.
 Gizmodo (@Gizmodo)2/23/12 4:29 PM Unbelievable: idiots are paying for service that adds "Sent from my iPhone" signature to messages gizmodo.com/5887798/idiots… |
 The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic)2/23/12 4:40 PM Who's the real aggressor in America's culture wars? theatln.tc/yBY6AA |
"It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species..."
 PhysOrg Science News (@physorg_com)2/20/12 12:57 PM Mars rocks indicate relatively recent quakes, volcanism, on Red Planet tw.physorg.com/248965173 |
| PhysOrg Science News (@physorg_com) 2/19/12 4:51 PM Pulsars: The Universe's gift to physics tw.physorg.com/248892809 |
 SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom)2/19/12 3:24 PM Moon's Scarred Crust Hints at Recent Activity, Scientists Say bit.ly/wPnAV0 |
"This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured above is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn's cloud tops. As most of the illumination comes from the image left, a labyrinth of ridges throws notable shadows just to the right of the image center, while the kilometer-deep canyon Labtayt Sulci is visible just below. The bright thin crescent on the far right is the only part of Enceladus directly lit by the Sun. The above image was taken last year by the robotic Cassini spacecraft during a close pass by by the enigmatic moon. Inspection of the lower part of this digitally sharpened image reveals plumes of ice crystals thought to originate in a below-surface sea."
