This information was posted at FlightAware.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
More WFOD Coverage
Sep. 29, 2009 (GlobeNewswire) --
NORWALK, Conn., Sept. 29, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) Foundation sent 30 educators representing various school districts throughout Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island into weightlessness today as part of the Northrop Grumman Foundation Weightless Flights of Discovery Program, which aims to inspire and prepare the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers -- critical areas where the U.S. has fallen behind globally.
The United States is experiencing a shortage of college graduates in the STEM disciplines, a negative trend that bodes ill for the nation's industries that depend on talented scientists and mathematicians. Because studies have indicated most children make the decision to pursue math and science education and careers during middle-school, Northrop Grumman developed the Weightless Flights of Discovery to engage teachers, and key influencers in the lives of students during these crucial years.
NORWALK, Conn., Sept. 29, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) Foundation sent 30 educators representing various school districts throughout Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island into weightlessness today as part of the Northrop Grumman Foundation Weightless Flights of Discovery Program, which aims to inspire and prepare the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers -- critical areas where the U.S. has fallen behind globally.
The program, in its fourth year, provides educators with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prepare for and participate in micro- and zero-gravity flights during which they test Newton's Laws of Motion with a variety of planned experiments. The experience and experiment results are captured through photos and videos that the teachers will then take into their classrooms to share with their students in order to demonstrate how exciting and cool careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can be.
As the plane flew over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, teachers conducted a range of experiments, including soaring like Superman, as they experienced lunar, Martian and zero gravity. Pictured: James Janski, Wells Road Intermediate School, Granby, CT (top row, left); Geoffrey Bergen, Whisconier Middle School, Brookfield, CT (top row, right); Michael Gary, J. A. DePaolo Middle School, Southington, CT (second row, right); Nina Rooks Cast, Cooley Health, Science, Technology High School, Providence, RI (second row, left), and Brian Katz, Keansburg High School, Keansburg, NJ (bottom row, left).
The Northrop Grumman Foundation supports diverse and sustainable programs for students and teachers. These programs create innovative education experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Zero G or Bust!
Bye everyone, we are off to fly the Weightless Flight of Discovery on Tuesday! Here’s a website that tells a little more about it, if you are interested … our exact flight begins at 11 AM. Think of us!!!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Nose Knows [more about Tycho Brahe ... a very odd man ...]
This story is directly from Curious Expeditions.
It was a precious metal occasion, Tycho thought to himself, looking down at his metallic options. Though heavier and more uncomfortable then the copper design, the gold and silver model looked more realistic and carried a certain gravitas and nobility. Today was a worthy event.
With that Tycho Brahe spread a layer of adhesive putty on the hole in his face where his nose used to be and smushed on the shiny metal nose, holding it in place to let it bond. The gold and silver had been mixed together to provide a somewhat flesh-like appearance, though Tycho knew it must have been distracting when it caught the light glinting off of it at odd angles. Tycho, however, was not one to let public opinion get to him. In fact, the metal nose on his face was one of the more normal things about Tycho Brahe.
Born in 1546 into Danish nobility, Tycho was a precocious child. Raised by an aunt and uncle, Tycho became fascinated with astronomy at the young age of 14 after he witnessed a solar eclipse. Amazed by both the event and the magical ability of the local astronomers to predict such an astonishing thing, Tycho took to astronomy like a fish to the sea. At the age of 17 he was already aware of the need for much more accurate astronomy practices, saying
“What’s needed is a long term project with the aim of mapping the heavens conducted from a single location over a period of several years.”
He did just that. Without the aid of the yet to be invented (or at least used for astronomy) telescope, Tycho worked night after night with only his eyesight and the best measuring instruments he could invent or acquire. Slowly he began the arduous process of making some of the very first accurate astronomical measurements.
Despite being obsessively accurate in his astronomical work, Tycho also knew how to let his mustache down. At the age of 20, Tycho was at a party when he got into a argument over mathematics and engaged in the very unwise idea of a duel in the dark. He escaped with his life but without his nose. Out of necessity he developed an immediate interest in metallurgy and crafted himself a metal replacement.
A wildly rich man (said to have owned as much as one percent of Denmark’s entire wealth at one point) Tycho also drank like a champ. He kept a future telling dwarf named Jepp around, often stashing him under the table during dinner. He also had a tame moose that he brought to friends houses for parties. Unfortunately at one such party, the moose was allowed to drink a large amount of beer and become highly intoxicated. It drunkenly fell down the stairs, and died shortly thereafter. If that’s not a wild party, I don’t know what is.
tychotomb.jpg Like a 16th century Animal House, this raucous behavior and Tycho’s general attitude towards the Danish peasantry was to eventually get him kicked out of Denmark. He settled himself in Prague where he got along with Emperor Rudolf II famously. Rudolf himself had a number of odd interests, and kept a beloved pet tiger. It’s not hard to see why they hit it off. Tycho was to be assisted in Prague by a young astronomer named Johannes Kepler. This, according to some, may have proved fatal.
Tycho sat down at the banquet that day, his precious metal nose weighing heavily on his face, unaware that this would be the last meal he ever ate. He felt ill throughout the banquet, but refused to leave the table, as it would have been poor manners. Tycho lapsed into a fever after the banquet and died 11 days later saying he words “Ne frustra vixisse videar” or “May I not seemed to have lived in vain” over and over.
The official story of his death, one corroborated by his assistant Kepler, was that he had strained his bladder by not using the bathroom during the banquet, and that did him in. But according to “Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History’s Greatest Scientific Discoveries” Kepler would have had every reason to espouse this theory. After performing tests on Tycho’s hair, Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder found that Tycho had very high mercury levels in his body. They claim in their book that Kepler, who went on to use Tycho’s research to write his own astronomy hit, “Laws of Planetary Motion”, had every reason to off Tycho and did so with a heavy dose of Mercury poisoning.
While it may be true that Kepler had a motive, the mercury levels in Tycho’s body are hardly solid evidence of murder. A serious practicer of alchemy, mercury exposure was a part of the job. Robert Hooke and Sir Issac Newton would both likely test well above Tycho for mercury levels. While Kepler may or may not have been a murderer, he certainly benefitted from his relationship with Tycho and Tycho’s untimely death. Two days after Tycho died, Kepler was appointed his successor as imperial mathematician.
All of which leaves me with one burning question. What’s the point of having a future telling dwarf named Jepp you keep under the dinner table, if he’s not around when you really need him?
Today one can see Tycho’s grave in the “Church of Our Lady in front of Týn” in the Old Town Square in Prague. Above his grave stands an relief of Tycho where one can just make out a line where the sculptor subtly indicated his metal nose.
It was a precious metal occasion, Tycho thought to himself, looking down at his metallic options. Though heavier and more uncomfortable then the copper design, the gold and silver model looked more realistic and carried a certain gravitas and nobility. Today was a worthy event.
With that Tycho Brahe spread a layer of adhesive putty on the hole in his face where his nose used to be and smushed on the shiny metal nose, holding it in place to let it bond. The gold and silver had been mixed together to provide a somewhat flesh-like appearance, though Tycho knew it must have been distracting when it caught the light glinting off of it at odd angles. Tycho, however, was not one to let public opinion get to him. In fact, the metal nose on his face was one of the more normal things about Tycho Brahe.
Born in 1546 into Danish nobility, Tycho was a precocious child. Raised by an aunt and uncle, Tycho became fascinated with astronomy at the young age of 14 after he witnessed a solar eclipse. Amazed by both the event and the magical ability of the local astronomers to predict such an astonishing thing, Tycho took to astronomy like a fish to the sea. At the age of 17 he was already aware of the need for much more accurate astronomy practices, saying
“What’s needed is a long term project with the aim of mapping the heavens conducted from a single location over a period of several years.”
He did just that. Without the aid of the yet to be invented (or at least used for astronomy) telescope, Tycho worked night after night with only his eyesight and the best measuring instruments he could invent or acquire. Slowly he began the arduous process of making some of the very first accurate astronomical measurements.
Despite being obsessively accurate in his astronomical work, Tycho also knew how to let his mustache down. At the age of 20, Tycho was at a party when he got into a argument over mathematics and engaged in the very unwise idea of a duel in the dark. He escaped with his life but without his nose. Out of necessity he developed an immediate interest in metallurgy and crafted himself a metal replacement.
A wildly rich man (said to have owned as much as one percent of Denmark’s entire wealth at one point) Tycho also drank like a champ. He kept a future telling dwarf named Jepp around, often stashing him under the table during dinner. He also had a tame moose that he brought to friends houses for parties. Unfortunately at one such party, the moose was allowed to drink a large amount of beer and become highly intoxicated. It drunkenly fell down the stairs, and died shortly thereafter. If that’s not a wild party, I don’t know what is.
tychotomb.jpg Like a 16th century Animal House, this raucous behavior and Tycho’s general attitude towards the Danish peasantry was to eventually get him kicked out of Denmark. He settled himself in Prague where he got along with Emperor Rudolf II famously. Rudolf himself had a number of odd interests, and kept a beloved pet tiger. It’s not hard to see why they hit it off. Tycho was to be assisted in Prague by a young astronomer named Johannes Kepler. This, according to some, may have proved fatal.
Tycho sat down at the banquet that day, his precious metal nose weighing heavily on his face, unaware that this would be the last meal he ever ate. He felt ill throughout the banquet, but refused to leave the table, as it would have been poor manners. Tycho lapsed into a fever after the banquet and died 11 days later saying he words “Ne frustra vixisse videar” or “May I not seemed to have lived in vain” over and over.
The official story of his death, one corroborated by his assistant Kepler, was that he had strained his bladder by not using the bathroom during the banquet, and that did him in. But according to “Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History’s Greatest Scientific Discoveries” Kepler would have had every reason to espouse this theory. After performing tests on Tycho’s hair, Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder found that Tycho had very high mercury levels in his body. They claim in their book that Kepler, who went on to use Tycho’s research to write his own astronomy hit, “Laws of Planetary Motion”, had every reason to off Tycho and did so with a heavy dose of Mercury poisoning.
While it may be true that Kepler had a motive, the mercury levels in Tycho’s body are hardly solid evidence of murder. A serious practicer of alchemy, mercury exposure was a part of the job. Robert Hooke and Sir Issac Newton would both likely test well above Tycho for mercury levels. While Kepler may or may not have been a murderer, he certainly benefitted from his relationship with Tycho and Tycho’s untimely death. Two days after Tycho died, Kepler was appointed his successor as imperial mathematician.
All of which leaves me with one burning question. What’s the point of having a future telling dwarf named Jepp you keep under the dinner table, if he’s not around when you really need him?
Today one can see Tycho’s grave in the “Church of Our Lady in front of Týn” in the Old Town Square in Prague. Above his grave stands an relief of Tycho where one can just make out a line where the sculptor subtly indicated his metal nose.Polish tests 'confirm Copernicus'
Researchers in Poland say they have solved a centuries-old mystery and identified the remains of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.(click on image to see it enlarged)
A comparison of DNA from a skeleton in Poland and strands of the astronomer's hair found in a book in Sweden almost certainly confirm it is his skeleton.
Archaeologists found the skeleton in north-eastern Poland three years ago in a cathedral where Copernicus lived.
He worked in Frombork Cathedral on the Baltic Sea coast in the 16th Century.
Copernicus made the key scientific discovery that the Earth orbits the Sun.
For many years he was a canon and only carried out his astronomical studies in his spare time. People had speculated about his final resting place for centuries.
Teeth DNA
Three years ago, archaeologists dug up a skull and partial remains of a man aged about 70, Copernicus' age when he died, near an altar at the cathedral.
Jerzy Gassowski, the leader of the archaeologists' team, said forensic facial reconstruction of the skull found that it bore a striking resemblance to existing portraits of the father of modern astronomy.
Scientists then matched the DNA from one of the skull's teeth and a femur bone with two strands of Copernicus' hair.
The hair was found in a book once owned by the astronomer now kept in Sweden's Uppsala University.
By Adam Easton
BBC News, Warsaw
Sea Potatoes -- a vacation find!
When I was in Cape Cod last week, I kept seeing these little Styrofoam-like "eggs" on the beach. They are about 4 inches long and fairly hard. I have been going to the Cape since I was a child, and I have never seen/noticed these things before. I asked the ranger at the Visitor Center, and she said they are brown algae; I broke one apart to see the insides and to take a whiff. They are definitely plant-like, that is true. They are like hardened foam on the outside, spongy green on the inside. The smell is a bit like low tide; not horribly unpleasant, but very biological.
I did a hurried web search to read up on them; I discovered their Latin name (Leathesia difformis) and also that there is a second "sea potato" that is actually a species of urchin. So much for common names (thanks again for the binomial nomenclature, Linnaeus!).
But I am left deeply unsatisfied with the information out there on the web about these objects. I want to know why the brown alga creates this structure and why there suddenly seem to be so many more of them. Do they bunch together like this in response to some sort of environmental stresses, or do they naturally grow like this? I must research further.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
This Week's Sky at a Glance
From Sky & Telescope:
Some daily events in the changing sky for October 3 – 11.
Watch the Moon wax in the west from night to night, passing Venus and fainter Antares. (These scenes are drawn for the middle of North America. European observers: move each Moon symbol a quarter of the way toward the one for the previous date. For clarity, the Moon is shown three times actual size.)
Monday, October 6
Get a low-power scope onto Venus low in the west-southwest as twilight fades, and look for the wide double star Alpha Librae less than 1° to its north (upper right). This direction is correct at the time of twilight in North America. Venus itself is tiny (13″ wide) and gibbous.
Jupiter is the thing shining above the Moon this evening. Jupiter is now at eastern quadrature, 90° east of the Sun.
Tuesday, October 7
First-quarter Moon (exact at 5:04 a.m. EDT). This evening, Jupiter shines to the Moon's right.
Wednesday, October 8
Jupiter's moon Io emerges out of eclipse by Jupiter's shadow around 9:47 p.m. EDT, just east of the planet. A small telescope will show it gradually swelling into view.
Thursday, October 9
Early Friday morning, telescope users along the East Coast from Labrador to Florida can watch for whether the faint asteroid 225 Henrietta will occult (cover) a 10.4-magnitude star near the head of Cetus (not in Monoceros; that was an error).
Friday, October 10
The red long-period variable star W Lyrae should be about at its peak brightness (8th magnitude) this week.
Saturday, October 11
Jupiter's moon Ganymede disappears into eclipse by Jupiter's shadow around 9:39 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, a little east of the planet. A small telescope will show it gradually fading away.
Some daily events in the changing sky for October 3 – 11.
Watch the Moon wax in the west from night to night, passing Venus and fainter Antares. (These scenes are drawn for the middle of North America. European observers: move each Moon symbol a quarter of the way toward the one for the previous date. For clarity, the Moon is shown three times actual size.)
Monday, October 6
Get a low-power scope onto Venus low in the west-southwest as twilight fades, and look for the wide double star Alpha Librae less than 1° to its north (upper right). This direction is correct at the time of twilight in North America. Venus itself is tiny (13″ wide) and gibbous.
Jupiter is the thing shining above the Moon this evening. Jupiter is now at eastern quadrature, 90° east of the Sun.
Tuesday, October 7
First-quarter Moon (exact at 5:04 a.m. EDT). This evening, Jupiter shines to the Moon's right.
Wednesday, October 8
Jupiter's moon Io emerges out of eclipse by Jupiter's shadow around 9:47 p.m. EDT, just east of the planet. A small telescope will show it gradually swelling into view.
Thursday, October 9
Early Friday morning, telescope users along the East Coast from Labrador to Florida can watch for whether the faint asteroid 225 Henrietta will occult (cover) a 10.4-magnitude star near the head of Cetus (not in Monoceros; that was an error).
Friday, October 10
The red long-period variable star W Lyrae should be about at its peak brightness (8th magnitude) this week.
Saturday, October 11
Jupiter's moon Ganymede disappears into eclipse by Jupiter's shadow around 9:39 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, a little east of the planet. A small telescope will show it gradually fading away.
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