Drink up: Space station recycling urine to water

In this photo provided by NASA, astronauts John Grunsfeld, left,
and Andrew Feustel, both STS-125 mission specialists, participate
in the mission's fifth and final session of extravehicular activity
(EVA) to refurbish and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope on
Monday May 18, 2009. Spacewalking astronauts completed repairs
to the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday. The last humans to lay
hands on Hubble outfitted the observatory with another set of fresh
batteries, a new sensor for precise pointing and protective covers.
That equipment, along with other improvements made over the last
five days, should allow the telescope to provide views of the universe
for another five to 10 years. (AP Photo/NASA) (AP)

By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 21, 2009; 12:22 AM
Reference Source - Washington Post, USA

HOUSTON -- At the international space station, it was one small sip for man and a giant gulp of recycled urine for mankind.

Astronauts aboard the space station celebrated a space first on Wednesday by drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air. They said "cheers," clicked drinking bags and toasted NASA workers on the ground who were sipping their own version of recycled drinking water.

"The taste is great," American astronaut Michael Barratt said. Then as Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Barratt called the taste "worth chasing."

He said the water came with labels that said: "drink this when real water is over 200 miles away."

The urine recycling system is needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. It also will save NASA money because it won't have to ship up as much water to the station by space shuttle or cargo rockets.

It's also crucial as the space station is about to expand from three people living on board to six.

The recycling system had been brought up to the space station last November by space shuttle Endeavour, but it couldn't be used until samples were tested back on Earth and a stuck valve was fixed on Monday.

So when it came time to actually drink up, NASA made a big deal of it.

The three-man crew stood holding their drinks and congratulated engineers in two NASA centers that worked on the system.

"This is something that had been the stuff of science fiction," Barratt said before taking a sip.

NASA deputy space shuttle manager LeRoy Cain called it "a huge milestone."

On the Russian side of the space station, moisture in the air _ not urine _ is turned into drinking water.

The new system takes the combined urine of the crew from the toilet, moves it to a big tank, where the water is boiled off, and the vapor collected. The rest of contaminants _ the yucky brine in the urine _ is thrown away, said Marybeth Edeen, the space station's national lab manager who was in charge of the system.

The water vapor is mixed with water from air condensation, then it goes through filters, much like those put on home taps, Edeen said.

When six crew members are aboard it can make about six gallons from urine in about six hours, Edeen said.

Some people may find the idea of drinking recycled urine distasteful, but it is also done on Earth, but with a lot longer time between urine and tap, Edeen said. In space, it takes about a week, she said.

The technology NASA developed for this system has already been used for quick water purification after the 2004 Asian tsunami, Edeen said.

Wednesday's urine celebration included subtle bathroom humor.

"We are happy to have this water work through the system _ we're happy to have it work through our systems," Barratt said.

Reference Source - Washington Post, USA

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The Most Important Telescopes In History

The Most Important Telescopes In History

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The most important telescopes in history

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009,
here is a tour of some of the most important telescopes ever built.





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Galileo's refractor (1609)

The exact origin of the telescope is still controversial. The oldest existing documents attribute its invention to the Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lipperhey in the early 17th century. Lipperhey found that placing a convex lens at one end of a tube and a concave lens at the other allowed him to magnify distant objects.

Though he didn't invent the telescope, Galileo improved on its design - gradually increasing its magnification power. And he was the first to realise that it could be used to study the heavens rather than just to magnify objects on Earth.





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Newton's reflecting telescope (1668)

Instead of using glass lenses to bend, or refract, light, Isaac Newton used a curved mirror to reflect light to a focal point. This design, which uses mirrors as buckets to collect light, can magnify objects far more than is possible with a lens. It also minimises the problem of chromatic aberration - colour defects that are caused by the lens bending different wavelengths of light by different amounts.

However, due to problems with accurately grinding the metal mirror, Newton's first reflector, a replica of which is seen here, actually caused more image distortions than other contemporary telescopes. As a result, more than a century passed before reflecting telescopes became popular among astronomers.







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Herschel's telescopes

In the late 1700s, German musician William Herschel and his sister Caroline began making large reflecting telescopes. With a mirror measuring 1.2 metres in diameter, Hershel's largest telescope (pictured) was an unwieldy instrument, requiring four servants to operate its wheels, ropes and pulleys. It remained the biggest telescope in the world until the mid-eighteenth century.

Herschel scanned the heavens systematically and catalogued hundreds of nebulae and binary stars (in 1781, with a smaller telescope, he discovered that an object previously thought to be a star was in fact the planet Uranus). In the 1830s, Herschel's son John spent a few years in South Africa, where he set up a similar, but smaller telescope to study the southern skies.








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Yerkes refractor (1895).

American astronomer George Ellery Hale was behind the construction of a refracting telescope with a 1-metre-wide primary lens - at the time, the world's largest telescope - at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. Ground by American telescope builders Alvan Clark and Sons, the primary lens was completed in 1895 and is still the largest ever made. But refractor builders had reached their limit with the Yerkes Telescope - larger lenses would sag under their own weight, among other problems, so telescope makers turned once again to reflectors

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PATTERNS OF MARS

A high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captures the abstract beauty of the Martian landscape....



Ripples

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, known as HiRISE, has yielded numerous never-before
seen images of the Red Planet, like this shot of an area west of the Nili Fossae trough that is one of the proposed
landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory.
The blue streaky areas are sand desposits created by wind activity.



Iris

A fresh two-kilometer diameter crater lies on the floor of Pasteur Crater. The colors in many of these photographs have
been enhanced by the HiRISE's software.



Dunes

The windblown sand that extends from the craters at the upper left of this image indicates winds blowing in two
different directions. The boulders on the craters' rims are approximately 1.5 meters wide.



Impact Crater

The dark blue in this image probably indicates sand, which lies over giant blocks — measuring from 10 to over 300 feet
that were thrown up when a meteor or comet collided with the planet surface.



Chaotic Terrain

This region, called Iani Chaos, contributed to the formation of Ares Vallis, a Martian valley that appears
to have been carved by fluids, perhaps water.



Monochrome

The steep interior walls of the crater Arabia Terra are lined with slope streaks, caused, perhaps,
by dust avalanches that have stripped away the planet surface to reveal a darker underlying layer.



Defrosting Sand Dunes

Mars' north polar region is surrounded by a large sea of dark sand dunes that are covered seasonally by carbon dioxide frost.



Wind

n the giant impact crater known as Hellas basin, small boulders cast long shadows. The bright blue patches are
false color representations of frost.



Fractured Hills

Mounds appear to rise from the bottom of impact craters. They could have been produced by ground ice
upheaval or erosion of the planet's mantling layer.



Crater Wall

Layers of rock are exposed along the wall of a crater located in a region known as Chryse Planitia.



Troughs

The darker areas towards the top of this image of the region Valle Marineris are wallrock.
Many of the troughs nearby contain mounds composed of light-toned layered deposits

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Islam and Science

OBSERVATION
Many modern scientific theories have some reference in the Quran.
This reveals that the Quran is truly a miracle and a word of God.


For e.g ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

•A question that has troubled the human mind for ages!

•Explanation based on religious or scientific ideas which often contradict one another.

•However, a study of the Quran reveals that there is a fantastic inter-relationship between religion and science.
•In fact the creation is a sign of the creator, studying the creation should create a sense of humility and closeness towards Allah:

Eg. In the creation of the heavens and the earth….
•O our lord, you have not created all of this in vain..

•Science explains two possibilities:

1.STEADY STATE:
Universe is infinite
No beginning, no end
Everything has been the way it is


2. BIG BANG:
Universe has a beginning
•Perhaps an end
•Space, time and matter came into existence at an instant
•From the explosion of a compact mass called a singularity!
•All of the matter that makes up the universe is a result of that explosion.
•Most scientists, prefer this explanation because it explains all other observations better. Eg. Concept of back ground radiation and expansion of universe

The Quran
21:30

“Don’t the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were one unit of creation, we then split them asunder (separated them)… “

Based on this Ayat we understand that the concept of the big bang in fact has an element of truth!
(Most scientists do not agree with the steady state anymore).


FORMATION OF A SOLAR SYSTEM:

Science explains:

•Big bang – hot fragments into space
•Fragments merged with clouds of gas called nebulae
•A cooling process began – giving rise to ball like structures – planets
•Heat that was generated due to the cooling process, accumulated in the centre – heated up the central body – became the sun.


The Quran
41:11

“Then he turned to the heaven and it was smoke. So he said to it and to the earth – come you two, willingly or unwillingly – They said – we come willingly”

Following ideas confirmed by this verse:
•Presence of smoke in the initial stages of the universe (nebulae)
•Merging of the smoke and the earth (perhaps the fragments)

BALANCING THE SYSTEM:

•Formation of planets and sun is not sufficient, they have to be held in their positions for a system to come about else all would scatter in space.

Science explains:
This balance is provided by gravity. Force by which one body pulls another towards it. Thereby holding each other in place

The Quran:
55:7

“ And the sky, he raised it and set the balance”
(Gravity may be the balance that is being referred to here).


ORBITS OF THE PLANETS:

Science explains:
Planets move around the sun in orbits.This is due to gravity and also central force of the sun.

The Quran:
21:33

“He it is who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, all swim along, each in its rounded course.”

EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE:
•Quite a recent discovery by Hubble telescope that the Universe expands like a balloon.


The Quran:
51:47

“We have built the heaven with might, and verily we are expanding it.”



WILL THERE BE AN END?

Science says YES!
Expansion will not go on forever
One day gravity will overcome the expansion
This will give rise to contraction
BIG CRUNCH!

The Quran:
Many verses explain the day of judgment

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Preparing to rescue Hubble

Preparing to rescue Hubble
The Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch next month (October 8th), carrying new instruments, batteries and gyroscopes to the Hubble Space Telescope. This will be the final servicing mission to Hubble, the 30th flight of the 23-year old Atlantis, and one of the final 10 flights of the Space Shuttle program, which will be retired in 2010. Even though Shuttle launches may seem to have become commonplace, their preparation and execution is still a months-long process, requiring the work and diligence of thousands to make sure the aging, complex systems are all in perfect condition for launch. Here are some photos of the ongoing preparations for the launch of this mission, STS-125, some of the people involved in making it work, and the crew, who will assume the risks to help keep Hubble alive.

One of the three main engines for space shuttle Atlantis is transported to bay number 1 at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Orbiter Processing Facility for installation on June 10, 2008. Atlantis is the designated vehicle for the STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA/Kim Shiflett)


On June 11, 2008, in NASA Kennedy Space Center's Orbiter Processing Facility bay 1, technicians coordinate the movement of one of the three main engines being installed on space shuttle Atlantis. Launch is targeted for Oct. 8. (NASA/Kim Shiflett)


The Pegasus barge carrying Atlantis' external fuel tank is towed into the turn basin in the Launch Complex 39 Area at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July 15, 2008. The tank will be offloaded and moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building, once inside the building, it will be raised to vertical, lifted and moved into a checkout cell. (NASA/Jack Pfaller) #



4
In the Launch Complex 39 Area at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the external tank for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope sits ready for offloading from the Pegasus barge on July 15, 2008. Next stop is the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the tank will be raised to a vertical position, lifted and moved into a checkout cell in the cavernous building. (NASA/Amanda Diller) #

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Wood on Mars ????

Conspiracy theorists can't see the wood for the trees as they spot 'timber plank' on Mars

An image sent back from the Red Planet has revealed an object bearing an uncanny resemblance to a wooden log. It was captured by the Mars Rover near the Endurance Crater.

The find has excited conspiracy theorists on blogs and websites who claim it is evidence there are vast forests on Mars that have been kept from the public.

It is more likely to be a case of pareidolia - where a random stimulus is perceived as having significance, be it a symbol seen in a cloud or a face on a piece of toast.

Scientists theorize the phenomenon occurs because humans are hardwired to recognise familiar objects as a survival technique.

The unusual image was featured in a NASA press release in 2004, although the space agency made no mention of the timber-like object captured on the spacecraft's 115th day on Mars.

But one website insists it is a leaked image that 'could get someone killed.' A writer from TheCrit said NASA's claims Mars was a desert world were 'lies' and that 'there are vast forests on Mars, ones that are kept from the public.'

They go on to speculate the 'wood' was brought to its present position by a flood of water that must have happened within 40 years 'because the wood is intact.'

However, the 'plank' has the same shading and a similar linear pattern to the surrounding rock.

Sadly, there is no scientific evidence of any macroscopic plant life on Mars and the vista in the image is one of a vast and desolate desert.

However, NASA scientists have found water ice in the north polar region of Mars as well as alkaline soil - key ingredients to support life.

In these images there is a polygonal pattern on the ground similar in appearance to polygonal structures in icy ground in the arctic regions of Earth.

'We have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life - whether past, present or future,' Sam Kounaves, lead analyst for the Phoenix spacecraft's mission said.

President Bush announced his intention to support a manned mission to Mars back in 2004. A ready supply of water would be essential to the project

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Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life

Stephen Hawking: "Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy"
June 26, 2009

Stephen Hawking

Asteroids Stephen Hawking believes that one of the major factors in the possible scarcity of intelligent life in our galaxy is the high probability of an asteroid or comet colliding with inhabited planets. We have observed, Hawking points out in Life in the Universe, the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter (below), which produced a series of enormous fireballs, plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot "bubbles" of gas in the atmosphere, and large dark "scars" on the atmosphere which had lifetimes on the order of weeks.

It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out.

Through Earth's history such collisions occur, on the average every one million year. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy, Hawking believes, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings.

Sl9calar “The threat of the Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by humanity,” according to Nick Bailey of the University of Southampton's School of Engineering Sciences team, who has developed a threat identifying program.[ Image: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision with Jupiter]

The team used raw data from multiple impact simulations to rank each country based on the number of times and how severely they would be affected by each impact. The software, called NEOimpactor (from NASA's "NEO" or Near Earth Object program), has been specifically developed for measuring the impact of 'small' asteroids under one kilometer in diameter.

Early results indicate that in terms of population lost, China, Indonesia, India, Japan and the United States face the greatest overall threat; while the United States, China, Sweden, Canada and Japan face the most severe economic effects due to the infrastructure destroyed.

The top ten countries most at risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria.

Astrofisico_Stephen_Hawking “The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a result of an impact are enormous,” says Bailey. “Nearly one hundred years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object (approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air. While it only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could have devastated everything within the M25. Our results highlight those countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in mitigating the threat.”

What would happen to the human species and life on Earth in general if an asteroid the size of the one that created the famous K/T Event of 65 million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs impacted our planet.

As Stephen Hawking says, the general consensus is that any comet or asteroid greater than 20 kilometers in diameter that strikes the Earth will result in the complete annihilation of complex life - animals and higher plants. (The asteroid Vesta, for example, one of the destinations of the Dawn Mission, is the size of Arizona).

How many times in our galaxy alone has life finally evolved to the equivalent of our planets and animals on some far distant planet, only to be utterly destroyed by an impact? Galactic history suggests it might be a common occurrence.

The first this to understand about the KT event is that is was absolutely enormous: an asteroid (or comet) six to 10 miles in diameter streaked through the Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour and struck the Yucatan region of Mexico with the force of 100 megatons -the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb for every person alive on Earth today. Not a pretty scenario!

Recent calculations show that our planet would go into another "Snowball Earth" event like the one that occurred 600 million years ago, when it is believed the oceans froze over (although some scientists dispute this hypothesis -see link below).

While microbial bacteria might readily survive such calamitous impacts, our new understanding from the record of the Earth's mass extinctions clearly shows that plants and animals are very susceptible to extinction in the wake of an impact.

Impact rates depend on how many comets and asteroids exist in a particular planetary system. In general there is one major impact every million years -a mere blink of the eye in geological time. It also depends on how often those objects are perturbed from safe orbits that parallel the Earth's orbit to new, Earth-crossing orbits that might, sooner or later, result in a catastrophic K/T or Permian-type mass extinction.

Vredefort The asteroid that hit Vredefort located in the Free State Province of South Africa is one of the largest to ever impact Earth, estimated at over 10 km (6 miles) wide, although it is believed by many that the original size of the impact structure could have been 250 km in diameter, or possibly larger(though the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, if confirmed to have been the result of an impact event, is even larger at 500 kilometers across). The town of Vredefort is situated in the crater (image).

Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far, with a radius of 190km, it is also the most deeply eroded. Vredefort Dome Vredefort bears witness to the world’s greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to many scientists, major evolutionary changes.

What has kept the Earth "safe" at least the past 65 million years, other than blind luck is the massive gravitational field of Jupiter, our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, which assures a low number of impacts resulting in mass extinctions by sweeping up and scatters away most of the dangerous Earth-orbit-crossing comets and asteroids

Posted by Casey Kazan with Rebecca Sato

Note: This post was adapted from a news release issued by University of Southampton.

Source: http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/131

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The Apollo Age

The Apollo Age: How 40 years has transformed the first men on the Moon


Forty years after their historic Moon mission, the three Apollo 11 astronauts have come together for what could be the last time.
The once fresh-faced brave pioneers now have silver hair and weather-beaten faces, but Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, 78 and Buzz Aldrin, 79, all appeared hale and hearty at their rare reunion.



On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited overhead.
Above and below from left to right: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins by the lunar module. The three men stood on the edge of a new frontier in 1969



More than half a billion people watched Armstrong take his first steps in the Sea of Tranquility at 0256GMT.

Four decades later the trio of elderly spacemen shared a platform at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum to mark the anniversary.
Despite sharing a death-defying mission, the three men went their separate ways after returning to Earth and have rarely met. Michael Collins once said they were 'amiable strangers' and noted they didn't bond like later Apollo crews.
They have distinctively different personalities. While Buzz Aldrin is outgoing and keen to sell his latest memoir and plug his website, Neil Armstrong is notoriously reserved and rarely speaks in public.


Although marking the anniversary of the Eagle landing, the trio didn't dwell on their small lunar steps in speeches to aviation dignitaries. Instead two of them urged the packed crowd take a giant leap to Mars.
Buzz Aldrin made a passionate pitch for the Red Planet. He said the best way to honor the Apollo astronauts 'is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration.'





Buzz Aldrin walks next to the Eagle lunar module. He spent two and a half hours outside the module



Three very different men with one shared goal: (l-r) Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin in their spacesuits




Top 10 startling facts about Apollo 11's historic Moon mission
The moment when man first walked on the Moon was watched by half a billion people and was arguably one of the most significant events in human history. Here we reveal 10 surprising facts about the most famous of space missions Apollo 11...

There is only one blurry direct photograph of Neil Armstrong actually on the Moon. All the famous shots are of his fellow spaceman Buzz Aldrin. Mr Aldrin denied speculation that this was because of 'sour grapes' over coming second. He said he had intended to take some shots after the flag planting but they then received an unexpected phone call from Richard Nixon.
Buzz Aldrin's father, Edwin Aldrin, was a good friend of Orville Wright - one of the famous brothers who built and flew the world's first airplane.




Neil Armstrong is visible on the right. This is the only direct shot of him on the lunar surface despite being the first man on the Moon

The Command Module pilot Michael Collins had been originally slated to pilot Apollo 8. However he was replaced by Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in the film Apollo 13) after he had surgery on his back. He took what would have been Lovell's spot on Apollo 11.
Buzz Aldrin was a firm Presbyterian Christian and had communion on the Moon. However it was kept secret from the public as Nasa was fighting a lawsuit by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair who objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis. Aldrin's communion kit was prepared by the pastor of his church.
Apollo 11 though a success was not a completely smooth mission. When landing the Eagle, Armstrong had to navigate over an unexpected boulder field, landing the craft with just 20 seconds left of fuel. The astronauts also had to use a biro to replace the re-ignition switch to send them back into space after Aldrin accidentally broke it





Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins (r) had been due to fly in Apollo 8, until a bad back caused a reshuffle that meant astronaut Jim Lovell never stepped on the Moon

Armstrong took the first steps on the Moon but Aldrin was the first to pee there. He took a lunar leak into a special bag within his suit.
The pair left behind a retroreflector array which is still used by scientists today to measure the distance between our planet and the Moon. Every day laser beams are shot towards the Moon from the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. Some of these are reflected back by the array and the distance can be calculated by the time this takes.




Buzz Aldrin, seen here on July 21 1969, was the first to relieve himself on the Moon into a special bag in his suit.
Buzz left a small gold olive branch on the Moon, along with an Apollo 1 patch and two Russian cosmonaut medallions to honour those that were killed during the space race. He almost forget to leave them until Armstrong reminded him and he unceremoniously dumped them on his way back into the command module. The pair also left their moon boots and urine bags on the lunar surface.
The American flag they placed near the Command Module was blown over by the downdraft when they launched back into space, according to Buzz Aldrin. In future Apollo missions flags were placed a good distance away.
Buzz, Neil and Michael suffered from excessive and 'fragrant' flatulence caused by hydrogen bubbles in their water.





Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot Neil Armstrong and command module pilot Michael Collins by their command module. It was said to smell quite fruity after the trip

Shy Neil Armstrong snubs Nasa's Moon landing 40th anniversary party

The first man to step on to the Moon will skip a Nasa event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the landmark mission.
Neil Armstrong is notoriously shy. He rarely speaks in public and has refused autograph requests since 1994. Even Apollo fans struggle to recall what the world's most famous astronaut looks like.

The irrepressible Buzz Aldrin who was the second man on the Moon will take his place instead, aided by Eugene Cernan, the last person to have bounced across the lunar surface to date.



Reserved: This is the only picture taken of Neil Armstrong on the moon. All the famous shots are actually of Buzz Aldrin, with Armstrong reflected in the visor

They will address a worldwide audience at Nasa's headquarters next Monday, 40 years to the day that Armstrong and Aldrin took their historic walk.
Meanwhile Armstrong will address Washington's Smithsonian Institution on Sunday night in a lecture, but it's thought unlikely that he will reminisce about this two and a half hours on the Moon's surface.
'He will not be doing interviews or photos,' a spokesperson from the Smithsonian said.

Nasa may have deliberately chosen Armstrong over the tempestuous Aldrin precisely because he was quiet and unassuming.

Protocol in 1969 dictated that as the lunar lander pilot and closest to the door, Buzz Aldrin should have been the first down the ladder of the Command Module, but this was changed for the Apollo 11 mission.
Armstrong's biographer James Hansen, suggests the change was made because officials believed he would be better able to bear the burden of lifetime fame and would not say anything that might embarrass the space agency.
While Armstrong, 78, has maintained a low profile ever since, Buzz Aldrin publicly struggled with alcoholism and depression in the years following his Nasa career.

Most recently he has teamed up with Snoop Dogg to create a rap about the Moon, and is publicising his latest autobiography called 'Magnificent Desolation.' In a recent talk Aldrin joked about his fellow moon-walker to the audience.
'I don't know if you noticed, but it's hard to know what's going on in Neil's mind,' he said.




Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong (left) and Buzz Aldrin talk about the launch of Apollo 11 on the 30th anniversary of the event in 1999


Armstrong also became embroiled in a legal argument after he found his Ohio barbed has sold some of his hair to a collector for $3,000.
Nasa has planned a programme of events around the 40th anniversary of their most famous mission in the hope it will bolster support for a return trip to our natural satellite.
They have also launched a new website - wechoosethemoon.org - which is a real-time interactive recreation of the first Moon landing.

The space shuttle programme is due to retire next year, and Nasa hopes its replacement, Constellation, will return people to the Moon by 2020.
A cheque signed by Neil Armstrong hours before he took off for the moon has been sold for $27,350, 40 years to the day after it was written. Engineer Jack Staub from California bought it in an online auction run by RR Auction of Amherst, New Hampshire. The $10.50 cheque was for money Armstrong had borrowed from Harold Collins, a NASA manager. According to the auction house, Armstrong wrote it in case anything happened to him on the moon mission, but told Collins not to cash it because he would return

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WONDERs OF SOLAR SYSTEM

The lakes of Titan, a moon of Saturn, are bodies of liquid methane that have been detected by the Cassini space probe, and had been suspected long before. The large ones are known as maria (seas) and the small ones as laci (lakes).

The possibility that there were seas of liquid methane on Titan were first suggested based on Voyager 1 and 2 data that showed Titan to have a thick atmosphere of approximately the correct temperature and composition to support them, but direct evidence wasn't obtained until 1995 when data from Hubble and other observations had already suggested the existence of liquid methane on Titan, either in disconnected pockets or on the scale of satellite-wide oceans, similar to water on Earth.

The Cassini mission affirmed the former hypothesis, although not immediately. When the probe arrived in the Saturnian system in 2004, it was hoped that hydrocarbon lakes or oceans might be detectable by reflected sunlight from the surface of any liquid bodies, but no specular reflections were initially observed.

The possibility remained that liquid ethane and methane might be found on Titan's poles, where it was expected to be abundant and stable. At Titan's south pole, an enigmatic dark feature named Ontario Lacus was the first suspected lake identified, possibly created by clouds that are observed to cluster in the area. A possible shoreline was also identified at the pole via radar imagery. Following a flyby on July 22, 2006, in which the Cassini spacecraft's radar imaged the northern latitudes (which are currently in winter), a number of large, smooth (and thus dark to radar) patches were seen dotting the surface near the pole. Based on the observations, scientists announced "definitive evidence of lakes filled with methane on Saturn's moon Titan" in January 2007. The Cassini–Huygens team concluded that the imaged features are almost certainly the long-sought hydrocarbon lakes, the first stable bodies of surface liquid found off Earth. Some appear to have channels associated with liquid and lie in topographical depressions.

Repeated coverage of these areas should prove whether they are truly liquid, as any changes that correspond with wind blowing on the surface of the liquid would alter the roughness of the surface and be visible in the radar. The high relative humidity of methane in Titan’s lower atmosphere could be maintained by evaporation from lakes covering only 0.002–0.02% of the whole surface.


Size comparison of Ligeia Mare with Lake Superior.During a Cassini flyby in late February 2007, radar and camera observations revealed several large features in the north polar region that may be large expanses of liquid methane and/or ethane, including one sea with an area of over 100,000 km² (larger than Lake Superior), and another (though less definite) region potentially the size of the Caspian Sea. A flyby of Titan's southern polar regions in October 2007 revealed similar, though far smaller, lakelike features.


Image of Titan taken during Huygens' descent, showing hills and topographical features that resemble a shoreline and drainage channels.During a close Cassini flyby in December 2007 the visual and mapping instrument observed a lake, Ontario Lacus, in Titan's south polar region. This instrument identifies chemically different materials based on the way they absorb and reflect infrared light. Based on this instrument's observations, scientists concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn's moon Titan does in fact contain liquid, that liquid being hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only other object than Earth in the solar system known to have liquid on its surface. This would make Titan a very interesting place to observe and study , to refine weather science, as differing liquid and gaseous materials and temperatures are at play there. This would help refine the science of Earth weather forecasting, allowing for better weather forecasts.

The discoveries at the poles contrast with the findings of the Huygens probe, which landed near Titan's equator on January 14, 2005. The images taken by the probe during its descent showed no open areas of liquid, but strongly indicated the presence of liquids in the recent past, showing pale hills crisscrossed with dark drainage channels that lead into a wide, flat, darker region. It was initially thought that the dark region might be a lake of a fluid or at least tar-like substance, but it is now clear that Huygens landed on the dark region, and that it is solid without any indication of liquids. A penetrometer studied the composition of the surface as the craft impacted it, and it was initially reported that the surface was similar to wet clay, or perhaps crème brûlée (that is, a hard crust covering a sticky material). Subsequent analysis of the data suggests that this reading was likely caused by Huygens displacing a large pebble as it landed, and that the surface is better described as a "sand" made of ice grains. The images taken after the probe's landing show a flat plain covered in pebbles. The pebbles may be made of water ice and are somewhat rounded, which may indicate the action of fluids.

On February 13, 2008, scientists announced that, according to Cassini data, Titan hosts within its polar lakes "hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth." The desert sand dunes along the equator, while devoid of open liquid, nonetheless hold more organics than all of Earth's coal reserves. In June 2008, Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer confirmed the presence of liquid ethane beyond doubt in a lake in Titan's southern hemisphere.

Models of oscillations in Titan's atmospheric circulation suggest that over the course of a Saturnian year, liquid is transported from the equatorial region to the poles, where it falls as rain. This might account for the equatorial region's relative dryness.

Impact craters

Radar, SAR and imaging data from Cassini have revealed a relative paucity of impact craters on Titan's surface, suggesting a youthful surface. The few impact craters discovered include a 440 km wide multi-ring impact basin named Menrva (seen by Cassini's ISS as a bright-dark concentric pattern). A smaller 80 km wide, flat-floored crater named Sinlap and a 30 km crater with a central peak and dark floor named Ksa have also been observed. Radar and Cassini imaging have also revealed a number of "crateriforms", circular features on the surface of Titan that may be impact related, but lack certain features that would make identification certain. For example, a 90 km wide ring of bright, rough material known as Guabonito has been observed by Cassini. This feature is thought to be an impact crater filled in by dark, windblown sediment. Several other similar features have been observed in the dark Shangri-la and Aaru regions. Radar observed several circular features that may be craters in the bright region Xanadu during Cassini's April 30, 2006 flyby of Titan.

Pre-Cassini models of impact trajectories and angles suggest that where the impactor strikes the water ice crust, a small amount of ejecta remains as liquid water within the crater. It may persist as liquid for centuries or longer, sufficient for "the synthesis of simple precursor molecules to the origin of life". While infill from various geological processes is one reason for Titan's relative deficiency of craters, atmospheric shielding also plays a role; it is estimated that Titan's atmosphere reduces the number of craters on its surface by a factor of two.

Cryovolcanism and mountains

Scientists have speculated that conditions on Titan resemble those of early Earth, though at a much lower temperature. Evidence of volcanic activity from the latest Cassini mission suggests that temperatures are probably much higher in hotbeds, enough for liquid water to exist. Argon 40 detection in the atmosphere indicates that volcanoes spew plumes of "lava" composed of water and ammonia. Cassini detected methane emissions from one suspected cryovolcano, and volcanism is now believed to be a significant source of the methane in the atmosphere. One of the first features imaged by Cassini, Ganesa Macula, resembles the geographic features called "pancake domes" found on Venus, and is thus believed to be cryovolcanic in origin.

The pressure necessary to drive the cryovolcanoes may be caused by ice "underplating" Titan's outer shell. The low-pressure ice, overlaying a liquid layer of ammonium sulfate, ascends buoyantly, and the unstable system can produce dramatic plume events. Titan is resurfaced through the process by grain-sized ice and ammonium sulfate ash, which helps produce a wind-shaped landscape and sand dune features.

A mountain range measuring 150 km long, 30 km wide and 1.5 km high was discovered by Cassini in 2006. This range lies in the southern hemisphere and is thought to be composed of icy material and covered in methane snow. The movement of tectonic plates, perhaps influenced by a nearby impact basin, could have opened a gap through which the mountain's material upwelled. Prior to Cassini, scientists assumed that most of the topography on Titan would be impact structures, yet these findings reveal that similar to Earth, the mountains were formed through geological processes

Dark terrain

In the first images of Titan's surface taken by Earth-based telescopes in the early 2000s, large regions of dark terrain were revealed straddling Titan's equator. Prior to the arrival of Cassini, these regions were thought to be seas of organic matter like tar or liquid hydrocarbons. Radar images captured by the Cassini spacecraft have instead revealed some of these regions to be extensive plains covered in longitudinal sand dunes, up to 330 meters high. The longitudinal (or linear) dunes are believed to be formed by moderately variable winds that either follow one mean direction or alternate between two different directions. Dunes of this type are always aligned with average wind direction. In the case of Titan, steady zonal (eastward) winds combine with variable tidal winds (approximately 0.5 meter per second). The tidal winds are the result of tidal forces from Saturn on Titan's atmosphere, which are 400 times stronger than the tidal forces of the Moon on Earth and tend to drive wind toward the equator. This wind pattern causes sand dunes to build up in long parallel lines aligned west-to-east. The dunes break up around mountains, where the wind direction shifts.

The sand on Titan might have formed when liquid methane rained and eroded the ice bedrock, possibly in the form of flash floods. Alternatively, the sand could also have come from organic solids produced by photochemical reactions in Titan's atmosphere. Studies of dunes' composition in May, 2008, revealed that they possessed less water than the rest of Titan, and are most likely to derive from organic material clumping together after raining onto the surface.

Climate

Titan's surface temperature is about 94 K (−179 °C, or −290 °F). At this temperature water ice does not sublimate or evaporate, so the atmosphere is nearly free of water vapor. The haze in Titan's atmosphere contributes to the moon's anti-greenhouse effect by reflecting sunlight away from the satellite, making its surface significantly colder than its upper atmosphere. The clouds on Titan, probably composed of methane, ethane or other simple organics, are scattered and variable, punctuating the overall haze. This atmospheric methane conversely creates a greenhouse effect on Titan's surface, without which Titan would be far colder. The findings of the Huygens probe indicate that Titan's atmosphere periodically rains liquid methane and other organic compounds onto the moon's surface. In October 2007, observers noted an increase in apparent opacity in the clouds above the equatorial Xanadu region, suggestive of "methane drizzle", though this was not direct evidence for rain. It is possible that areas of Titan's surface may be coated in a layer of tholins, but this has not been confirmed.

Simulations of global wind patterns based on wind speed data taken by Huygens during its descent have suggested that Titan's atmosphere circulates in a single enormous Hadley cell. Warm air rises in Titan's southern hemisphere—which was experiencing summer during Huygens' descent—and sinks in the northern hemisphere, resulting in high-altitude air flow from south to north and low-altitude airflow from north to south. Such a large Hadley cell is only possible on a slowly rotating world such as Titan. The pole-to-pole wind circulation cell appears to be centered on the stratosphere; simulations suggest it ought to change every twelve years, with a three-year transition period, over the course of Titan's year (30 terrestrial years). This cell creates a global band of low pressure—what is in effect a variation of Earth's Intertropical Convergence Zone. Unlike on Earth, however, where the oceans confine the ITCZ to the tropics, on Titan, the zone wanders from one pole to the other, taking methane rainclouds with it. This means that Titan, despite its frigid temperatures, can be said to have a tropical climate.

The number of methane lakes visible near Titan's southern pole is decidedly smaller than the number observed near the north pole. As the south pole is currently in summer and the north in winter, an emerging hypothesis is that methane rains onto the poles in winter and evaporates in summer.

Clouds

In September 2006, Cassini imaged a large cloud at a height of 40 km over Titan's north pole. Although methane is known to condense in Titan's atmosphere, the cloud was more likely to be ethane, as the detected size of the particles was only 1–3 micrometers and ethane can also freeze at these altitudes. In December, Cassini again observed cloud cover and detected methane, ethane and other organics. The cloud was over 2,400 km in diameter and was still visible during a following flyby a month later. One hypothesis is that it is currently raining (or, if cool enough, snowing) on the north pole; the downdrafts at high northern latitudes are strong enough to drive organic particles towards the surface. These were the strongest evidence yet for the long-hypothesised "methanological" cycle (analogous to Earth's hydrological cycle) on Titan.

Clouds have also been found over the south pole. While typically covering 1% of Titan's disk, outburst events have been observed in which the cloud cover rapidly expands to as much as 8%. One hypothesis asserts that the southern clouds are formed when heightened levels of sunlight during the Titanian summer generate uplift in the atmosphere, resulting in convection. This explanation is complicated by the fact that cloud formation has been observed not only post–summer solstice but also at mid-spring. Increased methane humidity at the south pole possibly contributes to the rapid increases in cloud size. It is currently summer in Titan's southern hemisphere and will remain so until 2010, when Saturn's orbit, which governs the moon's motion, will tilt the northern hemisphere towards the Sun. When the seasons switch, ethane will begin to condense over the south pole.

Research models that match well with observations suggest that clouds on Titan cluster at preferred coordinates and that cloud cover varies by distance from the surface on different parts of the satellite. In the polar regions (above 60 degrees latitude), widespread and permanent ethane clouds appear in and above the troposphere; at lower latitudes, mainly methane clouds are found between 15 and 18 km, and are more sporadic and localized. In the summer hemisphere, frequent, thick but sporadic methane clouds seem to cluster around 40°.

Ground-based observations also reveal seasonal variations in cloud cover. Over the course of Saturn's 30-year orbit, Titan's cloud systems appear to manifest for 25 years, and then fade for four to five years before reappearing again.

Prebiotic conditions and possible life

Scientists believe that the atmosphere of early Earth was similar in composition to the current atmosphere on Titan. Many hypotheses have developed that attempt to bridge the step from chemical to biological evolution. The Miller-Urey experiment and several following experiments have shown that with an atmosphere similar to that of Titan and the addition of UV radiation, complex molecules and polymer substances like tholins can be generated. The reaction starts with dissociation of nitrogen and methane, forming hydrocyan and ethyne. Further reactions have been studied extensively.

All of these experiments have led to the suggestion that enough organic material exists on Titan to start a chemical evolution analogous to what is thought to have started life on Earth. While the analogy assumes the presence of liquid water for longer periods than is currently observable, several theories suggest that liquid water from an impact could be preserved under a frozen isolation layer. It has also been observed that liquid ammonia oceans could exist deep below the surface; one model suggests an ammonia–water solution as much as 200 km deep beneath a water ice crust, conditions that, "while extreme by terrestrial standards, are such that life could indeed survive". Heat transfer between the interior and upper layers would be critical in sustaining any sub-surface oceanic life.

Detection of microbial life on Titan would depend on its biogenic effects. That the atmospheric methane and nitrogen are of biological origin has been examined, for example. Hydrogen has been cited as one molecule suitable to test for life on Titan: if methanogenic life is consuming atmospheric hydrogen in sufficient volume, it will have a measurable effect on the mixing ratio in the troposphere.

Despite these biological possibilities, there are formidable obstacles to life on Titan, and any analogy to Earth is inexact. At a vast distance from the Sun, Titan is frigid (a fact exacerbated by the anti-greenhouse effect of its cloud cover), and its atmosphere lacks CO2. Given these difficulties, the topic of life on Titan may be best described as an experiment for examining theories on conditions necessary prior to flourishing life on Earth. While life itself may not exist, the prebiotic conditions of the Titanian environment, and the possible presence of organic chemistry, remain of great interest in understanding the early history of the terrestrial biosphere. Using Titan as a prebiotic experiment involves not only observation through spacecraft, but laboratory experiment, and chemical and photochemical modelling on Earth.

An alternate explanation for life's hypothetical existence on Titan has been proposed: if life were to be found on Titan, it would be statistically more likely to have originated from Earth than to have appeared independently, a process known as panspermia. It is theorized that large asteroid and cometary impacts on Earth's surface have caused hundreds of millions of fragments of microbe-laden rock to escape Earth's gravity. Calculations indicate that a number of these would encounter many of the bodies in the solar system, including Titan.

Conditions on Titan could become far more habitable in future. Six billion years from now, as the Sun becomes a red giant, surface temperatures could rise to ~200K, high enough for stable oceans of water/ammonia mixture to exist on the surface. As the Sun's ultraviolet output decreases, the haze in Titan's upper atmosphere will deplete, lessening the anti-greenhouse effect on the surface and enabling the greenhouse created by atmospheric methane to play a far greater role. These conditions together could create an environment agreeable to exotic forms of life, and will subsist for several hundred million years, long enough for at least primitive life to form.

While the Cassini–Huygens mission was not equipped to provide evidence for biology or complex organics, it did support the theory of an environment on Titan that is similar, in some ways, to that of the primordial Earth.

There are a wide range of options for future missions to Titan that might address these and other questions, including orbiters, landers, balloons etc

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