Student education: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Marquette Island Martian Rock

3D image of the rock

Opportunity Rover has found a big rock on planet Mars. It is not clear that the rock is a meteorite or some thing else.
The rock has been named as "Marquette Island".
Enjoy these amazingly beautiful images of the " Marquette Island".

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Spirit Rover finally moves in Martian soil

Spirit Rover which was stuck in Martian soil since April, 2009 has finally showed some movements from its current position.

The Spirit Rover team is trying to get her out from the sand trap in which she has got stuck.

Enjoy the animations of recent movement of Spirit

NASA is planning to have a press conference on 12th November, 2009 regarding the escape plan of the Rover.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Explore Mars from Earth

For everyone who want to explore Mars but scared of going there , you can have your dream realised by going to NASA's Be a Martian website.

The Be a Martian site is a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft that uses the tool of crowsourcing to sift through the hundreds of thousands of photos sent back by Mars rovers and orbiters. The format of the site is much like a game, where you complete tasks to earn points and badges.
There is a forum on the site where one can ask questions, vote on questions and make comments to earn "Curiousity Points". NASA Mars experts will read the questions to see what the virtual Martian community is interested, and will host town hall-type meetings in the future where members can participate.
For games and videos you need to have Microsoft’s Silverlight application to work for this site.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Mensa Studies Homeschoolers

The Mensa Foundation conducted a study of first-year college performance of homeschool graduates. The purpose, "was to determine differences in first-year college academic performance between home school and traditional high school graduates, measured by grade point average, retention, ACT test scores, and credits.The conclusion, "Families who home school their children should not feel that the

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Herschel and Planck are on their way

The European Space Agency’s Herschel and Planck spacecraft have successfully launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. The launch took place at 2:12pm on 14.05.09 afternoon.

Friday, March 26, 2010

NASA has released rare footage of Sun erupting

NASA spacecraft has captured a rare footage of Sun erupting for the first time.

The phenomenon came to an end and the cloud lifted up.

Enjoy the video .

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Moon crash plume visible to spacecraft

The image of impact plume of "moon bombing" by NASA.

In my previous blog posts Moon bombing to probe water and Was NASA moon bombing a success i told you about "moon bombing" by NASA .

NASA had said that observers from Earth will be able to see the plume of " Moon bombing'' with their telescopes but no one was able to see that from Earth.

Acoording to NASA nine instruments on board the LCROSS spacecraft captured the entire crash sequence of the Centaur impactor before the spacecraft itself impacted the surface of the moon.

From images and data, the team was able to determine the extent of the plume at 15 seconds after impact was approximately 6-8 km in diameter. The data which which the spacecraft has gathered is of high quality.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

H1N1 and Our Children

Interesting. President Obama has declared the Swine Flu or H1N1 a national emergency. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has authority to bypass federal rules when opening alternative care sites, such as offsite hospital centers at schools or community centers if hospitals seek permission. But if this is such an "emergency" worthy of bypassing federal rules, why are

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Am I the only one...? (Update: Fake or Real?)

...who breathed a small sigh of relief when I found out that the six-year old boy thought to be drifting in a hot air balloon was both safe inside his garage AND not a homeschooler? FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A flying saucer-shaped helium balloon drifted away from a home in Fort Collins, Colorado Thursday. Contrary to earlier fears, however, there was not a 6-year-old boy inside. Falcon Heene

Monday, March 22, 2010

Image of Galaxy M31

NASA's Swift satellite acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

First images from Lunar Reconnissance Orbiter

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has transmitted its first images since reaching moon.

LRO will help NASA to locate potential resources , describe the moon's radiation environment and identify safe landing sites for future explorers.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Image of collison between two Milky- way like Galaxies

Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of collision between two Milky-Way like galaxies.

These two galaxies are known as NGC 2623 or Arp 243 are in the stages of emerging . The tail of NGC 2623 is richly populated with bright star clusters.

The galaxy NGC 2623 is an extensively studied galaxy and is bright in the infrared.

Friday, March 19, 2010

First ever close-up look of solar flare

NASA's spacecraft Messenger has recorded a closed-ever-look at the solar flare . It was the first time that the scientists have got a close-up look at neutron production during solar flare. The scientists were able to record neutrons from this flare over 6 to 10 hours.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Eta Carinae

Image of Eta Carinae which is a blue hot star, in 1843 was the second brightest star in sky after Sirius but it soon faded after 50 years.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Courtship in the 24/7 Era

My friend, Kim, has a saying on her Facebook, "A woman's heart should be so lost in God, that a man has to seek Him in order to find her." But this generation seems to be lost to Facebook and their cellphone making it way too easy not only to find her but everything about her too. The combination has made any rules of engagement (pun intended) obsolete.David Brooks examines how cell phones

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Glint of sunlight confirms liquid in Titan

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian, meaning "Jupiter-like", planets.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, lake-shaped basins.

This is a guest post by Murali dharan , who is a blogger.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Santa wishing from Lunar North Pole

Two days to go for Christmas . Santa Claus wishing Christmas from Lunar North Pole. Oops....... it is just an imagination!!!!! Have a Great Christmas .

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Airborne telescope

Airborne telescope will unlock secrets of the cosmos
A NASA jumbo jet that will help scientists unlock the origins of the universe with infrared observations reached a milestone December 18 when doors covering the plane's telescope were fully opened in flight.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a modified 747 jet known as SOFIA, flew for one hour and 19 minutes, which included 2 minutes with the telescope's doors fully opened. The goal was to allow engineers to understand how air flows in and around the telescope. It was the first time outside air has interacted with the part of the plane that carries the 98-inch (249-centimeter) infrared telescope.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Cassini-Huygens team wishing happy new year

New year wish from Cassini-Huygens team . They offer their views on Saturn and spacecraft Cassini.

You can find the spacecraft Cassini at the top right side of the image .

Friday, March 12, 2010

What is Harvest Moon?

I was surfing net when i stumbled upon a term "Harvest Moon" which i would like to share with you all in my this post.

Harvest moon is defined as the full moon closest to autumnal equinox . It is not an annual phenomenon but occurs once every four years and it occurred on 3rd October, 2009. It is usually brighter or colorful than other moons which is due to seasonal tilting of the year.

The Harvest moon is also known as the Wine Moon, the Singing Moon and the Elk Moon.

Enjoy the above beautiful pic of Harvest Moon taken on 3rd October, 2009.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Does Mars has trees ?

Martian trees ........ no there is no such any evidence of trees in Mars . The scientists say that it is just an optical illusion .They are the naturally erupting dust clouds on Mars

The so called Martian Trees are actually dark basaltic sand pushed to the surface of sand dunes by sun-heated solid carbon dioxide ice, sublimating directly into vapor.

The image, taken by MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Make a wish for a Martian pic

The above pic is one of the possible future landing site on Mars.

Now, you can suggest photos of Mars to be taken by NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars.
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ( HiRISE) has recorded 13,000 images of Martian surface. Inspite of thousands of pictures of Mars being taken it is believed that only 1% of the surface of Mars is being photographed.
A web tool called HiWish allows you to suggest a location on Mars where HiRISE instrument should take an image. You can go through the site to browse the Red planet and find out a location which can be photographed.
With the help of this tool you can place a rectangle on Mars where you would like the pics to be taken , you will have to explain a possible benefit of photographing that particular area.HiRISE is trying to find a possible landing site . You can track your suggestion and will be notified when your suggestion is taken.
For students and other people who are involved in exploring Martian surface, its a perfect opportunity.
Its time for making a HiWish .......

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Full Moon and crimes

I love the sight of a full moon , poets love them and so are the criminals......... yes it is believed that the crime rate is high on a full moon , although there is no solid proof regarding it.

Even the scientists cannot give a correlation between the crime rates on a full moon lit night , babies conceived or born during that time or any other such occurences.

It is just a myth and nothing else . It is believed that we usually notice increase in such activities during a full moon night as we remember a full moon phase more than other moon phases.

If a crime is committed on a full moon night people remember it more as it is obvious than when the moon was a crescent.
crimes, births, and strange occurrences happen all month long, but only those that occur around Full Moon cause people to talk about them.
For everyone who love to watch a full moon would like to mention that 30th January,2009 will be a full moon lit night and it will be the biggest full moon of 2010.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Reaching Homeschoolers

At a homeschool convention last year, another vendor and I struck up a conversation. He had a lot of energy but seemed a bit uptight; however, he readily admitted that he felt totally out of place because he didn't homeschool and this was definitely not his "typical convention." Not really interested in finding out what his "typical convention" was like, I smiled and assured him that we

Sunday, March 7, 2010

NEA Puts Power Ahead of Kids

It's really no surprise to anyone ever that the NEA was more interested in protecting its power than educating children. What is surprising is that they actually feel confident enough in their power to admit it. Here's the NEA's General Counsel admitting as much in his retirement speech this past summer. "Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Homeschoolers and Health Care

For all my homeschooling friends who think ObamaCare will solve their financial and health insurance woes, think again. It may give you temporary relief for your financial headache, but it may also invite government nannies into your home to improve your child's well-being and health.HR 3200 that passed the House of Representatives, currently has a provision for funding states that implement a

Friday, March 5, 2010

Mom's On the Computer (or not)

Some readers are wondering if I've once again fallen off the face of the internet. Not really, I'm a bit more active on Facebook, but even that is sporadic. Perhaps the best way to explain my is to post a song I recently rewrote (with apologies to Harry Chapin) as an intro to my upcoming workshop, iHelp for the eHome - learning to stay focused and use electronics and the Internet responsibly

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Senseless Deception

What are we, as Christian parents, to think and more importantly do when Godly discipline turns deadly and a little child is senselessly killed at the hand of his parents desperately hoping only to "train up a child in the way he should go"?Nearly four years ago, I wrote about out the death of Sean Paddock at the hand of his mother, Lynn Paddock. Paddock was eventually convicted of her son's

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Rebutting Socialism

This week, a group of college students at Washington University in St. Louis sought to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the eventual end of communism in Russia. But the university forced them to take down their display because it was "too offensive." Instead of going away quietly, the students decided to take their message national. Campus Gulag website reported: On the 20th

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Power for Martian homes

Have you ever played with the idea that your future generations could be building their homes in Martian soil. Yes, it can be very much possible ........ a house in Mars . How they will they get energy for using it at home and for cutting rocks ??????
The answer could be biofuels. It is believed that a slightly altered cynobacterium may help us to power future Martian homes.
The sunlight which Mars gets is half the amount of sunlight which Earth receives so no any chances of using solar energy as power. Mars has rust , dust and lots of carbondioxide in its environment and carbondioxide can be used by cynobacterium to turn into a biofuel called isobutanol .
This biofuel can help people living in Mars for power. Biofuels can't burn in the carbon atmosphere so the future houses in Mars need to be altered to carry oxygen as well.
Having an inexpensive biofuel can fulfill our dream of our future generations building homes in Martian soil.

Astronomy and Valentine's Day

Astronomy and Valentine's Day ..............??? Valentine's Day is associated with flowers and chocolates ....... but if you love someone who is interested in astronomy then here are few pics to win his/her heart.

This love from Mars is a heart shaped pit formed by collapse within a straight walled trough known as graben. The pic is send by Mars Orbiter Camera ( MOC).

Chandra image is of young star cluster NGC 346 which highlights a heart- shaped cloud of a 8 million-degree celsius gas in the central region.

Asteroid Eros mythical name is fitting of the holiday. It was imaged by Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Spacecraft.

Envisat picks out a heart from the arid landscape of Africa's Sahara. This is a multi-temporal Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) image of the central coast of Mauritania in West Africa .

We are celebrating Valentine' day on our Earth today but we should not forget that love is found every where . Our Universe is after all such a loving place.
Have an Astronomical Valentine's Day !!!

The Face on Mars : a myth

Face on Mars is a myth, although the picture resembles a human head formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth.

In 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft took the photos of Mars and one of the photos shows the resemblance of human face.The head is huge nearly 3 km from the region of planet called Cydonia. Since, then some people think that Mars has life and that NASA is trying to hide the fact from people.

On April 8, 2001 — a cloudless summer day in Cydonia pictures were taken and the pictures were like landforms common in American West and these are known as butte or mesa in Mars.It was found that Cydonia contains many mesas like the Face, but the others don't look like human heads, so they've attracted little attention.

Quote of the Day

Shamelessly swiped from the Facebook status of my dear sister Donna, a homeschool mom of eight children 17 and under: It only takes......One Macy's catalog to convince me I'm not beautiful enough...One Timberdoodle catalog to convince me that I'm not homeschooling enough...One Vision Forum catalog to convince me I don't have character enough...Yet just One Word from God shows me that I am loved

Goals 2000 is alive in 2010

In the mid-1990's, my state legislator knocked on my door campaigning for reelection in our district. After a brief chit-chat session where he talked about roads, drains, and everything else he thought I cared about, I asked him, "Are you aware of the pending education reform in our state and many others which is modeled after Europe and will forever change the US economy?""No, I'm not." He

See Asteroid Vesta with your naked eyes

Mark the date 17 Feb, 2010 as you might see Asteroid Vesta with binoculars or if you are lucky can even see it with your naked eyes as it will shine at a magnitude of 6.1 . Vesta is not the largest asteroid but it will be brightest as it will be opposite to Sun as seen from Earth. It will be at its closest point to Earth in its orbit about 211,980,000 kms away , the asteroid will be visited by the spacecraft Dawn. Vesta will be visible in the Eastern constellation.

Why Asteroid Vesta will be prominent ??

Vesta is in close proximity to Earth these days , full half of Vesta is being bathed by sunlight which makes it brighter and it has unique surface material that is not dark.

Don't miss the opportunity of seeing Vesta !!!!

Historical of Telescopes

Historical of Telescopes
Telescopes made their mark in the history almost 400 years back in early 1600’s. It all began when Galileo, an Italian mathematician, invented a new mechanical instrument that helped him in realizing his dream of viewing different celestial objects in the sky at night.

According to the principle that was invented by Galileo, a telescope should have an arrangement of two lenses in order to gather more light. the principle is that the two lenses would gather the light and would focus the gathered light to build an image.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Can a vegetarian survive in Mars ?

Do you want to have a Martian home and plan to stay there forever....... then you need a lotta chickens.
Mars climate is not like Earth as there are no plants in Red planet hence, the future settlers of Mars will have to depend on Earth to meet their demand of daily bread.
We are all aware of the fact that chicken is a great source of protein , chicken's dung can be used as manure to grow the crops such as wheat and barley in the Martian soil by genetically altering the plants and can also be used as energy to light up the homes there. It is believed that chicken dung has the highest level of nutrients available.
Using the process of Pyrolysis the future settlers can turn chicken manure into biochar ( a charcoal like product ).
Now, why chickens ?
Simple reason for the use of chickens is that they are easy to transport as compared to other animals which are larger in size. The size of an egg is average 57 gms and an average size of a calf is 32 kgs at the time of the birth so it makes chicken as the preferred choice for the future space animals.
If you are a vegetarian then you will have to give your Mars dream a miss for the time being !

Search continues for Mars Polar Lander

Mars Polar Lander is one of the two exploration vehicles of NASA Mars Surveyor' 98 Program launched on 3rd January 1999.

It all happened 10 years ago in December 1999 the Mars Polar Lander before entering the atmosphere of Mars became missing.
The search for the remains of MPL began using Mars Global Surveyor and now HIRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is continuing the search.
It is believed that the spacecraft’s computer misinterpreted the release of the lander’s legs in preparation for decent on the surface of Mars which might have caused the engines to shut down.
The search still continues…….

Muslims Turn to Homeschooling

Because of our family's proximity to Dearborn, Michigan one of the largest Arab populations outside of the Middle East and my daughter's study of the Arabic language and culture, I did not find it surprising that Muslims are turning to homeschooling.Muslim parents consider homeschooling for many of the same reasons other parents do - strong academics built on a foundation of religious

Meteor shower in the sky

The meteor season is into full swing over the next few days as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak over the nights of 11-12 and 12-13 August. If we can blot out some of the Moon’s light behind a tree or nearby building, we can see at least one meteor per minute.

Perseids , gets the name from constellation Perseus. The warm summer nights in UK will make the Perseids more visible.

Some Perseids can be as bright as the brightest stars, such as Vega or as Jupiter or even as Venus. Some leave behind lingering orange trails or on odd occasions appear as fireballs. You either record these events or sit back and just enjoy.