Dave Burrows - Tech / iPhone Blog - Technical Evangelist » Space

How does GPS work? (Video)

Dave Burrows — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:28:51 +0000

Filed under: GPS Utilities, SatNav, Space, Technology

Large Hadron Collider Hits Operational Temperatures

Dave Burrows — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:14:08 +0000

Get ready to duck (again). The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, has now reached an operating temperature of 1.9K–colder than outer space itself, according to Ars Technica.

That means the LHC will soon be ready to begin crashing particles together, after a catastrophic failure and series of repairs over the past year took the accelerator out of commission.

The current prognosis is that the LHC will begin operations sometime in the next five weeks. It will accelerate particles at speeds very close to the speed of light. In effect, they’d run around the 16.7-mile length of the accelerator over 11,000 times per second, the report said. That necessitates the accelerator contain a vacuum that’s an order of magnitude less dense than the moon’s atmosphere. In other words, this is tough stuff, so let’s give those guys a break about that whole catastrophic failure thing.

Source: Gearlog

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Posted in News, Space, Technology

A look at the Nasa app for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Dave Burrows — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:58:56 +0000

I’m pretty impressed with the Nasa app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I thought it was going to be a very flimsy application that would just open up the web browser to the Nasa website, but this is a very good feature rich application.

The application is basically an RSS reader style of application skinned with a very nice black skin theme loading images, photos and news stories from the Nasa website in a great way also providing mission countdown timers to when a mission is going to launch.

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Posted in Applications, iPhone, iPod, News, Space, Technology

New Ion Rocket to slash journey time to Mars

Dave Burrows — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:54:25 +0000

Put your phasers on stun (Star Trek pun), a new rocket designed jointly by NASA, Ad Astra, and Nautel, may potentially slash the time it takes on a trip from Earth to Mars to as little as a short 39 days! And yep, it uses ion propulsion–just like Star Trek taught us.

The new rocket uses Ion propulsion, via the new plasma-based VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) engine, and is now close to the point where it could be tested on a flight to the moon. The rocket works by turning electrical power into thrust in order to harness solar energy.

The 39 day time compares to six months using current rocket technology. A round-trip to Mars would take far longer than six months as Mars and Earth only pass close to each other every two years, engineers assume a crew would go one way, wait a year, and then fly back the next time the planets passed each other by.

The ion drive would enable astronauts to shoot there and back during a single close approach.

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Posted in Space, Technology

Nasa app for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Dave Burrows — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:22:21 +0000

NASA have announced the release of an application for the iPhone and iPod touch. The NASA app for iPhone aggregates and delivers up-to-the-minute information, videos, images and news updates about NASA missions. Users can access NASA countdown clocks, various NASA missions like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover complete with images, video clips and even NASA’s Tweets concerning the mission in question. It also provides the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day and more in an interface optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch. The NASA App also provides three different views to allow users to track the current positions of the International Space Station and other spacecraft currently orbiting Earth.

The NASA app for iPhone is available free from the iTunes App Store.

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Posted in Applications, iPhone, iPod, Space

Nasa to crash two spacecrafts into the moon today

Dave Burrows — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:49:30 +0000

NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite is scheduled to drop its Centaur upper-stage rocket on the lunar surface at 7:31 a.m. ET (12pm BST).

NASA hopes the impact will kick up enough dust to help the LCROSS probe find the presence of water in the moon’s soil. Four minutes later, the LCROSS will follow through the debris plume, collecting and relaying data back to Earth before crashing into the Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole.

The LCROSS is carrying spectrometers, near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer. These instruments will help NASA scientists analyze the plume of dust — more than 250 metric tons’ worth — for water vapor.

The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will watch, and photograph, the collisions. And hundreds of telescopes on Earth also will be focused on the two plumes.

NASA is encouraging amateur astronomers to join the watch party.

“We expect the debris plumes to be visible through midsized backyard telescopes — 10 inches and larger,” said Brian Day at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. Day is an amateur astronomer who is leading education and public outreach for the LCROSS mission.

“The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater’s rim to be seen from Earth,” Day said. The Cabeus crater lies in permanent shadow, making observations inside the crater difficult.

Source: CNN

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Posted in News, Space