Who's watching Who

Although we knew before,now we have proof. Hubble has snapped up pictures of a planet orbiting around a star outside our solar system.For the first time there is an opportunity to study the nature of an other solar system other than ours.This may help us to understand and arrive at generic patterns across several solar systems.

The planet, Fomalhaut b, maintains an orbit around the star Fomalhaut and has three times the mass of Jupiter. "Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off," said Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkeley.

So we can see it will take an awful lot of time to study and to compare & contrast with our system.I think we need lot more  Hubbles if we hope to do so.

CHANDRAYAAN -1 Fired & Placed Successfully

Hindu Reports "The spacecraft reached its final home after commands were radioed at 6.33 p.m. from the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC), nerve-centre of the current operations at ISTRAC, to Chandrayaan-1’s engine, Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM), to fire.

The engine fired for 58 seconds and Chandrayaan-1’s aposelene (the farthest distance from the moon) was reduced from 255 km to about 100 km. On Tuesday, its periselene was reduced from 187 to about 100 km. Thus, after the last orbit reduction on Wednesday evening, Chandrayaan-1 was truly home."

Learn more about the moon mission here

Golden Gate to the Nature

Have you ever seen a what is under the rainforest? Don't worry just go to the last floor!! The new Academy building in the Golden Gate Park has a 4 storey Rainforest.In the Top floor you can see the birds and butterflies in the Tree branches,zoom down to the last floor  and watch the roots in water along with the piranhas above your head.

       The new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park

The building designed by Renzo Piano has a 2.5 acre living roof has1.7 million native plants.Apart from the 4-storey rainforest,there is  also an aquarium, a planetarium and the natural history museum.

Mr.Piano says '"This museum has always worked on three levels - displaying the collection, educating the public, researching the science. The spirit of this new building is to announce and enforce this complexity of function."

Lined with photovoltaic cells and recycled denim as insulation it is a true green building.Visitors even get a discount if they took  public transport to the park.

It will be wise thing to bring in more green elements even in building ordinary buildings like homes,offices etc.If you are about to build your home or design a building check out the green options available to you which can be incorporated in the new building.As for the existing ones,switch to power saving bulbs atleast.

 

Try Paintings instead of Painkillers

According to a recent study conducted by Marina de Tommaso & team, of the University of Bari, beautiful artifacts lessen the intensity of pain felt by the onlooker. Participants of the study rated one third less of pain while looking beautiful paintings than the others who did not.

It is said the paintings soothes the viewers and calms them so they embrace the pain more comfortably.Prof de Tommaso who published her findings in the paper Aesthetic Value of Paintings (And) Affects on Pain Thresholds says "Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their aesthetic aspects should be taken into account too".

Although more detailed studies have to be conducted to arrive at specific conclusions ,I suppose it will be helpful for many.All those art galleries out there have now got a new list of potential customers,the premium hospitals who care about aesthetics too.

Next time you want to give someone a bad news, tell them a in a room with good art.
Got a headache,see a Da vinci before seeing a doctor.

CERN's LHC -Largest research on Smallest Particles

CERN's LHC experiment - which is said to be the largest experiment in the History of mankind, is set to commence at approximately 9.30 am (France) tomorrow( Sep 10).
The $9 billion project, which includes a group of 5,000 scientists has been completed after 20 years its start, battling various issues including a series of lawsuits.
The experiment will start with the pumping of a beam of particle at the speed of light particles,which will smash with a similar beam pumped from another direction after a few days.
Scientists have ensured that no black holes or any such apocalyptic activity would arise from the experiment as feared by some groups. Although it is expected to bring out some startling discoveries which will help in exploring the possible existence of parallel universes and the like.But scientists say it may take months or almost an year to identify the initial outcomes itself.

If the research becomes a success,it may also help in the research of teleportation,time travel etc... Now that's a fascinating news for sci-fi lovers like me :)

Green Technology-White Trees

The Trees of the future may not be green but certainly will help in keeping the environment green.Klaus Lackner, a physicist with the Earth Institute at Columbia University is trying to develop Artificial Trees.

Lackner's model of Synthetic Trees

Actually the synthetic trees are not exactly trees but more like a atmospheric carbon dioxide suckers. They will absorb nearly 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year — roughly the amount emitted annually by 15,000 cars.
Global Research Technologies LLC is another firm focusing in co2 capturing technology.It also has developed a Co2 capturing device which is little different from Lackner's model.

Dr K Muthuchezhian,Head of Department -BioEnergy at MKU,Tamil Nadu is attempting to develop 'Robot Trees' based on Lackner's model.

"Trees are the first line to fight global warming," he says. "But man continues to destroy forests, ignoring the dangers of global warming. Forests are being replaced by industries that emit dangerous greenhouse gases. Robot trees will go a long way in tackling this problem.The energy absorbed by the solar panel leaves is converted into electricity. The solution in which the carbon dioxide is dissolved gets heated with the help of this solar power and is split into oxygen, hydrogen and water vapour, which are released through the outlets in the solar panel. Carbonic acid, formed as a result of the reaction, is released into the earth via the artificial root system."

It is estimated that 2.5 lakh synthetic trees is sufficient to absorb the total emissions arising from all vehicles around the world.
Hopefully these white trees will provide us a green future.

Big Bang Machine All set for to become a Smash Hit

The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research) or CERN is all set to start its groundbreaking experiment which is going to become the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.

It has constructed a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France for conducting particle beam tests
Six experiments (CMS, ATLAS, LHCb, TOTEM, LHC-forward and ALICE) are currently being built, and will be running on the collider; each of them will study particle collisions under a different point of view, and with different technologies.
Simply put, the scientists are going to smash particles at 99.99% speed of light to study the new particles & beam reactions.It is said this experiment may recreate the big bang scenario and probably the conditions where a black hole is formed.

Sounds dangerous enough .But if the experiment is successful as intended, it could open up a whole lot of possibilities where science fiction movies can turn into realities.
But if it is a disaster,well no one will be left to blame anyone

SEE more pics here....