Comment Go to the source... (Score 5, Informative) 34
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
Has all the images, none of the space.com ads
Comment Re:With the exception of Mercury and other stars.. (Score 4, Insightful) 256
There are plenty of interesting moons, planetoids and asteroids upon which we could land and explore. Limiting the discussion to only "official" planets is too limiting.
Cybersecurity Bill Fails Today In US Senate 72
wiredmikey writes "A development following the recently posted story Senate Cybersecurity Bill Stalled By Ridiculous Amendments — The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to advance in the US Senate on Thursday. The measure was blocked amid opposition from an unusual coalition of civil libertarians — who feared it could allow too much government snooping — and conservatives who said it would create a new bureaucracy. The bill needed 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to advance under rules in the chamber, but got only 52. The failure came despite pleas from Obama and top US defense officials. The US Chamber of Commerce argued that the bill 'could actually impede US cybersecurity by shifting businesses' resources away from implementing robust and effective security measures and toward meeting government mandates.'"
Comment Re:Common Sense (Score 1) 535
Unlikely. This thing was huge, like the size of an xbox (in a box) large and stuffed directly up the front of his shirt.
Maybe he had the all-you-can-eat taco bar for lunch, and just had not had a chance to empty it...
Comment Re:Soap Films? (Score 1) 37
Don't get me started on carbon films and metallized thin films.
Well, a soap film could wash off the carbon film at least. I've had to do that after working on my car. As for the thin metallic film, you might need something better than soap.
Comment Very cool... (Score 1) 144
I just wish they had named it something pronounceable. "Chi b to the asterix" just doesn't flow off the tongue too well..
Comment Re:Unreadable Summary (Score 1) 85
That is all.
Beat me to it.
I miss Taco...
Submission + - How to install GIMP 2.8 RC1 on Ubuntu 12.04 (linuxstall.com)
Chankey Pathak writes: "GIMP 2.8 RC1 was released on April 8, 2012. The details of this new release are on the official site. Here in this article I’ll show how to install GIMP 2.8 on Ubuntu 12.04."
Submission + - Apple Developing Tool To Detect And Remove Flashback Trojan
An anonymous reader writes: Two months ago, a new variant of the Flashback Trojan started exploiting a security hole in Java to silently infect Mac OS X machines. Last week, Russian antivirus company Dr. Web revealed that the Flashback Trojan botnet controls over 600,000 Macs. Today, Apple announced it is developing software that will detect and remove the Flashback malware.
Submission + - Using less effort to think, opinions lean more conservative, a study found (phys.org) 1
rainbo writes: "An excerpt reads: “People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response,” Eidelman said. “This low-effort thinking seems to favor political conservatism, suggesting that it may be our default ideology. To be clear, we are not saying that conservatives think lightly.” While ideology – either conservative or liberal – is a product of a variety of influences, including goals, values and personal experiences, Eidelman said, “Our data suggest that when people have no particular goal in mind, their initial cognitive response seems to be conservative.”"
Submission + - North Korea Is Lying About Its Rocket Launch, Sat-Watchers Show (wired.com)
SolKeshNaranek writes: Synopsis:
North Korea claims that its impending satellite launch, scheduled for this week, is merely a mission to study the country’s “distribution of forests” and weather patterns. But after analyzing the satellite’s potential flight paths, a network of amateur and professional spaceflight specialists have concluded that Pyongyang’s claim is all but impossible. In order for the North Koreans to get a weather or observation satellite into the proper orbit, these experts say, Pyongyang would have to risk the early stages of its rockets dropping on its neighbors’ and allies’ heads.
Article:
“I believe that the most reasonable interpretation is that they are lying about this being a satellite launch, which has been betrayed by the incompetence of their propagandists in over-reaching in their cover story,” longtime satellite watcher Ted Molczan noted on the SeeSat listserv.
The Pyongyang regime has a long history of malarkey, of course. After its last satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-2 (Bright Star 2), plopped into the Pacific Ocean minutes after liftoff, North Korea swore that the thing was in orbit and transmitting “immortal revolutionary paeans” back to Earth. But this time, the debunking appears to be underway even before the rocket takes off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station.
Shortly after announcing its latest launch, North Korea published the intended flight path of the rocket that would attempt to take the 1,000-kilogram Bright Star 3 satellite into space. As part of a standard warning to the region’s shipping and airline companies — known as a “notice to airmen” or “NOTAM” — Pyonyang said the booster rocket would fly due south, ejecting its first stage just west of South Korea and its second just east of the Philippines. “A safe flight orbit has been chosen so that carrier rocket debris to be generated during the flight would not have any impact on neighboring countries,” the state-run KCNA news service promised on Mar. 16. Airlines are now re-routing their flights based on that North Korean warning.
Pyongyang swore that the flight path would enable the satellite to assume what’s known as a “sun-synchronous” orbit — one that provides a constant angle between the sun, satellite, and the ground below, giving the Bright Star-3 an almost consistent view of North Korea with every overflight. That’s the kind of orbit used by the overwhelming majority of low-earth-orbit imagery and weather satellites. And it would be consistent with North Korea’s promise that the Bright Star 3 was designed to examine its own crops and climate.
One small problem: The flight path published in North Korea’s “NOTAM” and its promised sun-synchronous orbit don’t match up, as Molczan, a veteran observer of spacecraft, discovered when he crunched the numbers.
“I do not see how North Korea could reach a sun-synchronous orbit from the new launch site without risk to populated areas,” he wrote on the SeeSat list. “Launching directly toward the required 192.3 [degree] azimuth would result in a trajectory that skirts China’s east coast near Shanghai. The rocket’s second stage would overfly Taiwan, before impacting in a zone bordering within perhaps 50 km of the west coast of the northern Philippines.”
In other words, North Korea might be telling the truth about the direction of its launch, or the contents of it. But not both.
Yeah, there are some advanced techniques for readjusting to a sun-synchronous orbit, once the craft is in space. But North Korea isn’t terribly advanced. “I very much doubt that North Korea plans for its rocket stages to fall in the zones I have estimated,” he added, “but it is for North Korea to explain the inconsistency between the orbit it claims to be targeting and the NOTAMs it provided.”
The idea that a single satellite could survey both North Korea’s weather and its natural resources is pretty hard to believe, too. “It’s not common to have one satellite (a small one at that) doing all those missions,” former Air Force Space Command officer Brian Weeden e-mails Danger Room. “This is a country that has never successfully placed a satellite into orbit and doesn’t have a satellite industry. To try and put a fairly advanced satellite — remote sensing and weather, using UHF radio and X-band satellite communications — into a fairly precise orbit is quite the undertaking.”
NASA veteran Jim Oberg had a chance to see the Bright Star 3 up close, at the Sohae Satellite Launching Center. “I thought at first it was a model. I thought it was a symbolic representation. I couldn’t believe it was flight hardware. I couldn’t believe it was the one being launched in a few days,” he tells NBC news.
So it seems clear that Pyongyang isn’t trying to send a weather satellite into orbit. What is it planning on firing off into the skies? On that point, space-watchers are divided. Some, like Weeden, aren’t even sure it matters much.
“The main purpose is not to develop a real space program but rather ‘marketing’ the launch so as to limit the ways other countries can criticize the launch,” Weeden says. Iran started sending things into space in 2009. The international outcry was minimal, at best. Perhaps the North Koreans are “trying to replicate that in order to both continue testing and development of their missile technology and also increase the prestige and power of the regime. Whether or not they actually succeed in placing a satellite into orbit is likely a secondary goal.”
“For all we know,” he adds, “it could just be a bag of rocks on the tip of the booster.”
“The significance of the launch, of course, is the booster itself; the booster is bigger than it has to be,” Oberg concludes. “It’s not a military missile .. but it’s darn close. This rocket is not a weapon, but it’s maybe 98 percent of one.”
North Korea claims that its impending satellite launch, scheduled for this week, is merely a mission to study the country’s “distribution of forests” and weather patterns. But after analyzing the satellite’s potential flight paths, a network of amateur and professional spaceflight specialists have concluded that Pyongyang’s claim is all but impossible. In order for the North Koreans to get a weather or observation satellite into the proper orbit, these experts say, Pyongyang would have to risk the early stages of its rockets dropping on its neighbors’ and allies’ heads.
Article:
“I believe that the most reasonable interpretation is that they are lying about this being a satellite launch, which has been betrayed by the incompetence of their propagandists in over-reaching in their cover story,” longtime satellite watcher Ted Molczan noted on the SeeSat listserv.
The Pyongyang regime has a long history of malarkey, of course. After its last satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-2 (Bright Star 2), plopped into the Pacific Ocean minutes after liftoff, North Korea swore that the thing was in orbit and transmitting “immortal revolutionary paeans” back to Earth. But this time, the debunking appears to be underway even before the rocket takes off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station.
Shortly after announcing its latest launch, North Korea published the intended flight path of the rocket that would attempt to take the 1,000-kilogram Bright Star 3 satellite into space. As part of a standard warning to the region’s shipping and airline companies — known as a “notice to airmen” or “NOTAM” — Pyonyang said the booster rocket would fly due south, ejecting its first stage just west of South Korea and its second just east of the Philippines. “A safe flight orbit has been chosen so that carrier rocket debris to be generated during the flight would not have any impact on neighboring countries,” the state-run KCNA news service promised on Mar. 16. Airlines are now re-routing their flights based on that North Korean warning.
Pyongyang swore that the flight path would enable the satellite to assume what’s known as a “sun-synchronous” orbit — one that provides a constant angle between the sun, satellite, and the ground below, giving the Bright Star-3 an almost consistent view of North Korea with every overflight. That’s the kind of orbit used by the overwhelming majority of low-earth-orbit imagery and weather satellites. And it would be consistent with North Korea’s promise that the Bright Star 3 was designed to examine its own crops and climate.
One small problem: The flight path published in North Korea’s “NOTAM” and its promised sun-synchronous orbit don’t match up, as Molczan, a veteran observer of spacecraft, discovered when he crunched the numbers.
“I do not see how North Korea could reach a sun-synchronous orbit from the new launch site without risk to populated areas,” he wrote on the SeeSat list. “Launching directly toward the required 192.3 [degree] azimuth would result in a trajectory that skirts China’s east coast near Shanghai. The rocket’s second stage would overfly Taiwan, before impacting in a zone bordering within perhaps 50 km of the west coast of the northern Philippines.”
In other words, North Korea might be telling the truth about the direction of its launch, or the contents of it. But not both.
Yeah, there are some advanced techniques for readjusting to a sun-synchronous orbit, once the craft is in space. But North Korea isn’t terribly advanced. “I very much doubt that North Korea plans for its rocket stages to fall in the zones I have estimated,” he added, “but it is for North Korea to explain the inconsistency between the orbit it claims to be targeting and the NOTAMs it provided.”
The idea that a single satellite could survey both North Korea’s weather and its natural resources is pretty hard to believe, too. “It’s not common to have one satellite (a small one at that) doing all those missions,” former Air Force Space Command officer Brian Weeden e-mails Danger Room. “This is a country that has never successfully placed a satellite into orbit and doesn’t have a satellite industry. To try and put a fairly advanced satellite — remote sensing and weather, using UHF radio and X-band satellite communications — into a fairly precise orbit is quite the undertaking.”
NASA veteran Jim Oberg had a chance to see the Bright Star 3 up close, at the Sohae Satellite Launching Center. “I thought at first it was a model. I thought it was a symbolic representation. I couldn’t believe it was flight hardware. I couldn’t believe it was the one being launched in a few days,” he tells NBC news.
So it seems clear that Pyongyang isn’t trying to send a weather satellite into orbit. What is it planning on firing off into the skies? On that point, space-watchers are divided. Some, like Weeden, aren’t even sure it matters much.
“The main purpose is not to develop a real space program but rather ‘marketing’ the launch so as to limit the ways other countries can criticize the launch,” Weeden says. Iran started sending things into space in 2009. The international outcry was minimal, at best. Perhaps the North Koreans are “trying to replicate that in order to both continue testing and development of their missile technology and also increase the prestige and power of the regime. Whether or not they actually succeed in placing a satellite into orbit is likely a secondary goal.”
“For all we know,” he adds, “it could just be a bag of rocks on the tip of the booster.”
“The significance of the launch, of course, is the booster itself; the booster is bigger than it has to be,” Oberg concludes. “It’s not a military missile
Submission + - Lack of vaccination sends babies in Oregon to the hospital (oregon.gov)
dmr001 writes: "In its fortnightly Communicable Disease newsletter, Oregon Public Health officials note increasing cases of pertussis (whooping cough) in infants, with 146 hospitalizations noted in the 2 year period ending March 2011, and at least 4 deaths since 2003. Most cases are attributed to lack of vaccination, with 86% of those due to parents declining the vaccine. "Most of our cases are occuring in under- or unvaccinated children, so getting these kids vaccinated seems to the most obvious approach to reducing illness. In priciple... pertussis could be eradicated; but we have a long way to go.""
Submission + - Carbon nanotubes: The weird world of 'remote Joule heating' (phys.org)
rainbo writes: ""A team of University of Maryland scientists have discovered that when electric current is run through carbon nanotubes, objects nearby heat up while the nanotubes themselves stay cool, like a toaster that burns bread without getting hot. Understanding this completely unexpected new phenomenon could lead to new ways of building computer processors that can run at higher speeds without overheating."
And it could also lead to some insane overclocking, what with the whole heat-isn't-an-issue thing!"
And it could also lead to some insane overclocking, what with the whole heat-isn't-an-issue thing!"
Submission + - Cold beer: Soft-serve Head Keeps Brew Chilled (msn.com)
Cazekiel writes: Sticking a mug in your freezer to ensure a cold beer may be made obsolete, if the Japanese brewing giant Kirin has anything to do about it. How? Kirin came up with a creative, delectable way to create frozen beer foam, dispensed the way you would a soft-serve ice cream cone.
Gizmag gives us the details:
"To make the topping, regular Ichiban beer is frozen to -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) while air is continuously blown into it. It's kind of like when a child makes bubbles in their drink, except inside a blast freezer. Once the topping is placed onto regular, unfrozen beer though, it acts as an insulating lid and keeps the drink cold for 30 minutes."
Gizmag gives us the details:
"To make the topping, regular Ichiban beer is frozen to -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) while air is continuously blown into it. It's kind of like when a child makes bubbles in their drink, except inside a blast freezer. Once the topping is placed onto regular, unfrozen beer though, it acts as an insulating lid and keeps the drink cold for 30 minutes."
Submission + - The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of P2P (deepfield.net)
An anonymous reader writes: Rumors of P2P's death have been greatly exaggerated. After years of plummeting P2P traffic volumes, a new report by cloud analytics company DeepField Networks claims P2P may be on its way back thanks to legal attacks on file sharing sites like MegaUpload and the rapid growth of cloud seedboxes.
