Dramatic sunsets are undeniably gorgeous, but they portend something ominous: millions of fine particles polluting the air. Researchers are now studying sunsets painted over the past 500 years to find clues to how our air got dirtier after the Industrial Revolution.
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Your city’s air quality got you down? Consider picnicking inside this glass-topped park proposed by Orproject. The transparent, ultra-lightweight canopy—inspired by the geometry of butterfly wings—would act as a kind of fresh air reserve: part filter, part outdoor hospital, where you and your friends can breathe in peace. [Orproject]
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What are the clouds of Mars made of? That’s the question that’ll be answered when NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) probe reaches our neighbor. Before that can happen, however, it needs to leave home on its long journey, which is scheduled to commence around 1:30pm ET today. The stream kicks off from 11:00, showing the preparations live from Cape Canaveral, so if you’re interested in watching what goes down, or, more appropriately, what goes up, head past the break and grab some popcorn.
Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt
Via: Space.com
Source: NASA
The Earth’s atmosphere is actually a churning sea of fluid, though it’s easy to forget when you’re just hanging out, breathing it all in. This satellite shot of a tiny island in the Pacific shows the spiral trails it leaves as an ocean of air swirls by.
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If you thought cloud writing was cool, then how about a message from space burnt into the night sky? A group of unassuming cubesats recently left the comfort of the ISS and joined Earth’s orbit — among them was FITSAT-1 (aka Niwaka), a four-inch-cubed Japanese satellite covered in high-powered LEDs. Its mission is to broadcast the message “Hi this is Niwaka
While its creator, Professor Takushi Tanaka, has said the Morse broadcast has “no practical aim,” we think it would make a good emergency beacon for natural disasters (or, more worryingly, alien invasions). FITSAT-1 will try and fulfill all requests for appearances, but it can’t control the weather, so you’d better hope for a clear night if it visits your part of the world. If you’re as excited as we are to see it in action, bookmark the source links below, which should be updated with its orbit schedule in the near future. And, even if you don’t speak Japanese, the video after the break will give you an idea of what to expect.
Continue reading Japan’s LED-stacked cubesat will burn Morse code into the heavens
Japan’s LED-stacked cubesat will burn Morse code into the heavens originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Imagine you’re outside, walking happily on a beautiful sunny day. Suddenly, the light gets intense. You look up, and see a bright flash filling everything. Seconds later, a powerful wind starts pushing the clouds out of view at hypersonic speed. Buildings, trees, and people fly away, disintegrating into a billion pieces. Everything around you disappears and the sky is no longer blue, because the atmosphere has been blown away like a candle. More »
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