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Eyes to the skies: Rocket launch to be visible in DC region

NASA Wallops Flight Facility is scheduled to launch a rocket tonight that will be visible to the DMV as it climbs into the sunset sky.

The facility hopes to launch the 13th Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:39 p.m. near sunset. The Cygnus cargo ship (spacecraft) is the S.S. Robert H. Lawrence, named for the first ever African American selected as an astronaut.

The launch and mission will be carried live by NASA.

Beyond Infinity: An Expedition to the Outer Limits of Mathematics

O.o!


A mind-expanding and funny trip to the edge of mathematics

How big is the universe? How many numbers are there? And is infinity + 1 is the same as 1 + infinity? Such questions occur to young children and our greatest minds. And they are all the same question: What is infinity? In Beyond Infinity, Eugenia Cheng takes us on a staggering journey from elemental math to its loftiest abstractions. Along the way, she considers how to use a chessboard to plan a worldwide dinner party, how to make a chicken-sandwich sandwich, and how to create infinite cookies from a finite ball of dough. Beyond Infinity shows how one little symbol holds the biggest idea of all.

Sun’s surface

No, these are not pictures of caramel corn—they’re the new close-ups of the sun, taken by the largest solar telescope ever built, and they’re what the Internet has been abuzz about for a week. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) is able to capture imagery three times more detailed than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re looking at here in this video are huge bubbling cells as big as Texas, transferring heat from the sun’s interior to its surface, but the telescope can also resolve tiny features as small as Manhattan Island within the cells!

The DKIST is about 13 feet wide and has a better-than-bird’s-eye-view at 10,000 feet above sea-level on the summit of Haleakala, a massive shield volcano on Hawaii’s island Maui. The area covered in this image is about 22,600 miles by 22,600 miles, but the cell-like structures shown are about the size of Texas.

This is only the first time it’s been used so far, and scientists are hoping that in the future it will be helpful in predicting solar weather. Scientists still have a lot of questions about the dynamical processes in the sun and space weather is a focus that can have significant impact on the everyday individual. Space weather has a huge influence on our air travel and satellite communication, sometimes causing power outages and system failures, and our technology has only given us about 48 minutes’ notice until now. The DKIST will help us predict solar flares 48 hours in advance and understand space weather like we never have before.

Boeing’s Starliner test flight had a 2nd critical software issue, NASA panel finds (report)

Boeing is considering another test flight for its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft amid concerns from a NASA safety panel about its first flight.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft launched on Dec. 20, but was unable to dock with the International Space Station as planned because it ended up in the wrong orbit. But of growing concern now are two software problems that were uncovered after the flight was complete.

Life on board an O’neill Cylinder

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O’Neill Cylinders space stations are examples of large rotating habitats able to be constructed in space in which people and even a complex ecology might be transplanted. But what would it be like living in one and how would civilizations based inside them in the future tend to operate?

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Credits:
Life on board an O’Neill Cylinder
Episode 223; Jan 30, 2020

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