Clown Phobia

Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) is a rather common phobia.  Here is an excerpt form a National Geographic video a few years ago where a woman is being de-sensitized to help her move past her phobia.  What phobias do you have, or do your friends & family have?  I once knew someone who was deathly afraid of toads.  TOADS.  There is no rhyme or reason for these phobias .... I find them fascinating.

oooooooo, i like me some tiny house.

There is an entire movement of people dedicated to building and living in very tiny houses.  Read a blog about it here.  How fun would it be to live in such a tiny house?  The people who choose to live here want to have as little ecological impact as possible. 

Breaking the Sound Barrier

What is the Speed of Sound?


Because of the variables in measuring the speed of sound, we measure it at Mach 1. Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound, etc. The fastest any airplane has ever flown is Mach 6.7 -- a record set by the X-15, flown by Air Force Capt. Peter Knight on Oct. 3, 1967. The X-15 was built by North American.

Why "Sound Barrier"?
Before 1947, it was believed that the speed of sound created a physical barrier for aircraft and pilots. As airplanes approach the speed of sound, a shock wave forms and the aircraft encounters sharply increased drag, violent shaking, loss of lift, and loss of control. In attempting to break the barrier, several planes went out of control and crashed, injuring many pilots and killing some.
Eventually, the barrier proved to be mythical. Capt. Chuck Yeager, who punched through the barrier in the X-1, later wrote in his autobiography: "I thought I was seeing things! We were flying supersonic! And it was as smooth as a baby's bottom. Grandma could be up there sipping lemonade."

What is a "Sonic Boom"?
Sonic booms are created by air pressure. Much like a boat pushes up a wave as it travels through water, a vehicle pushes air molecules aside in such a way they are compressed to the point where shock waves are formed. The shock waves move outward and rearward in all directions and usually extend to the ground. As the shock cones spread across the landscape along the flightpath, they create a continuous sonic boom along the full width of the cone's base. The sharp release of pressure, after the buildup by the shock wave, is heard on the ground as the sonic boom.

Fifty years ago, aircraft encountered serious turbulence from the accumulating shock wave. As the first to successfully ?punch through? the sound barrier, Col. Yeager was the first to report that smooth flight resumed ?on the other side.? Trying to break the sound barrier had already killed several pilots who lost control when they hit the shock wave. The 24-year-old Yeager encountered the same turbulence as other pilots, but tried something new -- he slammed the throttle forward and literally punched his way through the previously impenetrable barrier. On the other side, the flight returned to its routine smoothness.

This article may be found here at its original location.

A common problem ...

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Closeup Comet

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer – Thu Nov 4, 9:00 pm ET

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA spacecraft sped past a small comet Thursday, beaming pictures back to Earth that gave scientists a rare close-up view of its center. Mission controllers burst into applause upon seeing images from the flyby that revealed a peanut-shaped comet belching jets of poisonous gases.

"It's hyperactive, small and feisty," said mission scientist Don Yeomans of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The close encounter occurred 13 million miles from Earth when the Deep Impact craft, hurtling through space, flew within 435 miles of comet Hartley 2. It's only the fifth time that a comet's core has been viewed up close.

Scientists are interested in comets because they're icy leftovers from the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Studying them could provide clues to how Earth and the planets formed and evolved.

"The scientific work is just beginning now," principal investigator Michael A'Hearn, of the University of Maryland, said at a post-mission news conference. "The engineers did a fantastic job of getting us data. Now we have to make sense of it."

Thursday's flyby is actually an encore mission for Deep Impact. It set off cosmic fireworks on July 4, 2005, when it fired a copper probe that crashed into comet Tempel 1. The high-speed collision spewed a cloud of debris into space, giving scientists their first peek of the interior.

After the $333 million comet-buster, NASA recycled Deep Impact for a new mission to visit another comet. It was supposed to target comet Boethin in 2008, but it was nowhere to be found. Scientists theorized the comet may have broken up into small pieces.

Deep Impact was then redirected to Hartley 2. Roughly 1 1/2 miles long, Hartley 2 is the smallest comet to be photographed up close. On its way there, the craft spent several months scanning a cluster of nearby stars with known planets circling them.

While its latest task lacks the Hollywood drama of the Tempel 1 crash, researchers still consider it an important mission. Unlike in 2005, viewers could not see Thursday's comet encounter in real time since the craft's antenna was not pointed at Earth as it flew past Hartley 2.

"There are a lot of open questions about comets and their life cycle," said project manager Tim Larson of JPL, which manages the $42 million encore mission. "We have so little data that every time we have an opportunity to go near a comet, it's a chance to expand our knowledge."

Since September, Deep Impact has been stalking Hartley 2 like a paparazzo, taking images every 5 minutes and gathering data. It's the first craft to visit two comets.

Deep Impact will observe Hartley 2 until Thanksgiving and then wait for further instructions from NASA. Thespace agency has not decided whether to reuse Deep Impact again. The craft does not have enough fuel on board to do another flyby.

The latest images add to scientists' cometary photo album, said astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the project.

"We're visual animals and nothing seems wholly real to us until we have a nice picture of it," Jewitt said.

Hartley 2 passed within 11 million miles of Earth on Oct. 20 — the closest it has been to our planet since its discovery in 1986.

British-born astronomer Malcolm Hartley, who discovered the comet, said he never imagined a spacecraft would get so close to his namesake find.

"When I saw the comet, it was millions and millions of kilometers away," he said. "I'm extremely excited and feel very privileged. After all, I only discovered it."

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Online:

Comet mission: http://epoxi.umd.edu/