Hasta La Gadget!

The agency in charge of Los Angeles’ subways announced at a press conference today that it is working with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to install body scanners in the city’s metro system. The plan to scan the bodies of passengers for “concealed threats” is said to be the first of its kind in the…

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Microsoft has been giving Insiders a foretaste of features and changes that are coming in the next Windows 10 version. Naturally, it is presumed that those features won’t actually be arriving until that version rolls out later this year. That was definitely the presumption for the “Your Phone” app that promises a seamless connection between Windows 10 and, at least … Continue reading

The sun is a crazy hot place. Just step outside in any of the summer months in Texas and you know this is true. The other day we talked a bit about the NASA Parker Solar Probe and how it would eventually become the fastest man-made object ever. At the time, I wondered how the probe could fly so close to the surface of the sun and not melt. It turns out NASA has an explanation for that.

The probe will travel through the corona of the sun where temperatures are greater than a million degrees Fahrenheit. The first reason it won’t simply melt is the probe’s fancy custom heat shield. In addition, the probe is designed to automatically face its heat shield in the proper direction, and it also packs a radiator-based cooling system. In addition, the low density of the plasma in the solar corona means a relatively small amount of heat will transfer to the probe.

The heat shield’s material is a carbon composite foam sandwiched between carbon plates. It is covered with white ceramic paint and can withstand temperatures up to 3,000º F. The video below shows just a tiny bit of how heat resistant the carbon composite material is, as its heated with a blowtorch to around 200º F. It would be interesting to see how well it works at full temperature.

More than a week after other services pulled the plug on Alex Jones and InfoWars, CNN reports that Twitter has given the personality a one-week suspension. The move came after a Periscope video session where Jones told viewers “now is time to act on…

The sun is a crazy hot place. Just step outside in any of the summer months in Texas and you know this is true. The other day we talked a bit about the NASA Parker Solar Probe and how it would eventually become the fastest man-made object ever. At the time, I wondered how the probe could fly so close to the surface of the sun and not melt. It turns out NASA has an explanation for that.

The probe will travel through the corona of the sun where temperatures are greater than a million degrees Fahrenheit. The first reason it won’t simply melt is the probe’s fancy custom heat shield. In addition, the probe is designed to automatically face its heat shield in the proper direction, and it also packs a radiator-based cooling system. In addition, the low density of the plasma in the solar corona means a relatively small amount of heat will transfer to the probe.

The heat shield’s material is a carbon composite foam sandwiched between carbon plates. It is covered with white ceramic paint and can withstand temperatures up to 3,000º F. The video below shows just a tiny bit of how heat resistant the carbon composite material is, as its heated with a blowtorch to around 200º F. It would be interesting to see how well it works at full temperature.