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Category: space – Page 798

There’s a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe

No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they’ve figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct.

Here’s what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around “orbitals” in an atom’s outer shell. Then there’s a whole lot of empty space. And then, right in the center of that space, there’s a tiny nucleus — a dense knot of protons and neutrons that give the atom most of its mass. Those protons and neutrons cluster together, bound by what’s called the strong force. And the numbers of those protons and neutrons determine whether the atom is iron or oxygen or xenon, and whether it’s radioactive or stable.

International Space Station astronauts play with fire for research

Playing with fire can be dangerous and never more so than when confined in a space capsule floating 250 miles above the Earth. But in the past week astronauts onboard the International Space Station have intentionally lit a series of blazes in research designed to study the behaviour of flames in zero gravity.

The scientists behind the experiment, called Confined Combustion, say it will help improve fire safety on the ISS and on future lunar missions by helping predict how a blaze might progress in low gravity conditions.

Dr Paul Ferkul, of the Universities Space Research Association, who is working on the project, said: “That is the immediate and most practical goal since NASA can use the knowledge to improve material selection and fire safety strategies.”

In the Next 50 Years Our Place in the Universe Will Change Dramatically – Here’s How

In 1900, so the story goes, prominent physicist Lord Kelvin addressed the British Association for the Advancement of Science with these words: “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now.”

How wrong he was. The following century completely turned physics on its head. A huge number of theoretical and experimental discoveries have transformed our understanding of the universe, and our place within it.

Don’t expect the next century to be any different. The universe has many mysteries that still remain to be uncovered – and new technologies will help us to solve them over the next 50 years.

On This Day in Space! Dec. 30, 1930: 1st Photo of the Curvature of the Earth

On Dec. 30, 1930, the first-ever photo of the Earth’s curvature was taken.

This photo was taken by Lieutenant Colonel Albert William Stevens, who was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps and an aerial photographer. He also happened to be a balloonist, and he once broke a world record for a high-altitude balloon flight. Stevens took this photo while flying in a balloon over South Dakota.

He used infrared-sensitive film that worked well for long-distance aerial shots in which the subject was obscured by things like haze. The mountains he was photographing were more than 300 miles away, and he couldn’t see them with his own eyes. But his camera was sensitive enough! The photo was the first visual proof that our planet is, in fact, round.