The Inexpensive Nano Camera Which Shoots As speed of Light

Now, that is a great achievement by MIT as they developed an inexpensive nano camera which can shoot pictures at the speed of light. The latest report came on TOI mentioning that the nano camera which roughly cost around $500 is capable of capturing images much faster.

The camera uses the "time of flight" technology, the location of objects is calculated by how long it takes a light signal to reflect off a surface and return to the sensor.

However, unlike existing devices based on this technology, the new camera is not fooled by rain, fog, or even translucent objects, said co-author Achuta Kadambi.

"Using the current state of the art, such as the new Kinect, you cannot capture translucent objects in 3-D," said Kadambi, a graduate student at MIT.

"That is because the light that bounces off the transparent object and the background smear into one pixel on the camera. Using our technique you can generate 3D models of translucent or near-transparent objects," Kadambi added.

In a conventional Time of Flight camera, a light signal is fired at a scene, where it bounces off an object and returns to strike the pixel.

The device will be much useful for medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy of motion tracking and gesture-recognition devices used in interactive gaming.

You can find the complete details of the camera at following TOI article:

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Sun Will "Flip Upside Down" In Few Weeks

The Sun is set to "flip upside down" within weeks as its magnetic field reverses polarity in an event that will send ripple effects throughout the solar system.

Although it may sound like a catastrophic occurrence, there's no need to run for cover. The sun switches its polarity, flipping its magnetic north and south, once every eleven years through an internal mechanism about which little is understood.

The swap could however cause intergalactic weather fronts such as geomagnetic storms, which can interfere with satellites and cause radio blackouts.

Nasa said in August that the change would happen in three to four months time, but it is impossible to give a more specific date. Scientist won't know for around another three weeks whether the flip is complete.

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The impact of the transfer will be widespread as the sun's magnetic field exerts influence well beyond Pluto, past Nasa's Voyager probes positioned near the edge of interstellar space.

The event will be watched closely by researchers at Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory, which monitors the sun's magnetic field on a daily basis.

Todd Hoeksema, director of the Wilcox Solar Observatory, said the polarity change is built up throughout the eleven year cycle through areas of intense magnetic activity known as sunspots which gradually move towards the poles, eroding the existing opposite polarity.

Eventually, the magnetic field reduces to zero, before rebounding with the opposite polarity. "It's kind of like a tide coming in or going out," Hoeksema said. "Each little wave brings a little more water in, and eventually you get to the full reversal."

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One of the most noticeable effect on Earth will be a boost in the occurrence, range and visibility of auroras - the Northern Lights. "It's not a catastrophic event, it's a large scale event that has some real implications, but its not something we need to worry about," added Hoeksema.

Source: Times Of India
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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Google Doodle Celebrates Sir C. V. Raman Birthday

Google doodles have been paying tribute to much of Indian legends than in previous years and today it celebrates the birthday of one of the greatest physicist known to India and to the world. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for the discovery that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman effect.

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born in Thiruvanaikaval, Trichinopoly, Madras Presidency, in British India. Sir C. V. Raman had shown extra ordinary potential through his studies and had won gold medal for physics during his B. A studies and also completed M. A studies with highest honors.

Raman led experiments at the IACS with collaborators, including K. S. Krishnan, on the scattering of light, when he discovered the Raman effect. A detailed account of this period is reported in the biography by G. Venkatraman.

It was instantly clear that this discovery was of huge value. It gave further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman had a complicated professional relationship with K. S. Krishan, who surprisingly did not share the award, but is mentioned prominently even in the Nobel lecture.

He was offered knighthood and many other medals through 1929 although the nobel prize came late to him and had to wait till 1930 to receive the award. He was the first Asian and first non-White to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences. Before him Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

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Sir C V Raman did not stop his work with the nobel, continued his studies and later in 1932 was involved with Suri Bhagavantam to discover the quantum photon spin.

Raman and his student, Nagendra Nath, provided the correct theoretical explanation for the acousto-optic effect (light scattering by sound waves), in a series of articles resulting in the celebrated Raman-Nath theory.Modulators, and switching systems based on this effect have enabled optical communication components based on laser systems.

He also started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (now known as TCM Limited) which manufactured Pottasium chlorate for the match industry in 1943 along with Dr. Krishnamurthy. The Company subsequently established four factories in Southern India. In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India.

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, November 07, 2013

NASA's First Space 3D Printer To Go Live By 2014: Will Be A LifeSaver

NASA is clear about what they want to do about the 3D printer, the first one to be launched in space. The low cost machine is said to be a savior for the astronauts who work from the space station and also help reduce the working cost for future missions. The plan is to launch the 3D metal printer by end of 2014.

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Although this will not be an easy task says the company, the device will have to withstand lift-off vibrations and operate safely in an enclosed space station environment.

Nasa has chosen technology start-up Made in Space to make the microwave oven-sized printer.

"Imagine an astronaut needing to make a life-or-death repair on the International Space Station," said Aaron Kemmer, the company's chief executive.

"Rather than hoping that the necessary parts and tools are on the station already, what if the parts could be 3D printed when they needed them?"

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In 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts had to cobble together a home-made carbon dioxide filter using a plastic bag, a manual cover and gaffer tape.

A 3D printer might have solved the problem in minutes.

"If you want to be adaptable, you have to be able to design and manufacture on the fly, and that's where 3D printing in space comes in,'' said Dave Korsmeyer, director of engineering at Nasa's Ames Research Center.

Nasa is also experimenting with 3D printing small satellites that could be launched from the International Space Station and then transmit data to earth.

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The common technology for 3D printing uses preparing layer by layer of polymer material, also called as Additive Manufacturing. There has been technology used by laser melting titanium and nickel chromium powders to make stronger components.

In August, Nasa successfully tested a metal 3D printed rocket component as part of its drive to reduce the costs of space exploration.

Photos n Inputs From BBC

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Venice Is Sinking 5x Faster, Confirms Sattelites

WASHINGTON: Modern satellites are helping scientists monitor how quickly Venice — the "floating city" of romance — is sinking with an unprecedented level of resolution. The results show the city is naturally subsiding at a rate of about 0.8 to 1 millimetre per year, while human activities contribute sinking of about 0.08 to 2 to 10 mm per year.

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Researchers said the sinking threatens to increase flooding in Venice, which already occurs due to high tides about four times per year.

The satellite data has revealed the amount that Venice is sinking, allowing scientists to compare the influence of natural causes of the sinking, due to compaction of the sediments on which the city is built, and to man-made ones, such as building restoration.

Understanding how the land is sinking is particularly important in the face of rising sea levels. "Venice is in a situation so critical with respect to the sea that continuous monitoring of the city's movement is of paramount importance," said researcher Pietro Teatini from the University of Padua in Italy.

Scientists first recognised the problem decades ago when they noticed that pumping of groundwater from beneath Venice was causing the city to settle into the earth.

The pumping and its effects have long since stopped, but the city continues to sink, 'LiveScience' reported.

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Researchers used two sets of satellite measurements of Venice's historical city center and the surrounding area.

The first dataset came from first-generation satellite sensors that have coarse resolution and collect data about once a month. The second one came from a newer satellite with sensors that have much better resolution and take measurements every 10 days, the report said.

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- Unknown Updated at: Monday, September 30, 2013

The Most Crowded Galaxy Discovered : 200 million Stars, only 54 million Light Years Away

Using the combined imaging capabilities of ground-based observatories with the high-flying Hubble Space Telescope and its cousin, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the ultra-compact dwarf galaxy known as M60-UCD1 turns out to be 15,000 times denser than what is found in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

“Traveling from one star to another would be a lot easier in M60-UCD1 than it is in our galaxy, but it would still take hundreds of years using present technology,” said lead author of the new study, astronomer Michigan State University’s Jay Strader, in a press release.

What’s even more remarkable about M60-USD1 is that the galaxy’s most crowded part–its core, where half its 200 million solar masses resides–spans a radius of only 80 light years. That means the stars in this little galaxy are about 25 times closer to each other than those we find around the Sun’s galactic neighborhood.

Chandra observations have revealed that the galaxy’s tiny core harbors a strong x-ray source, which belongs to a giant black hole that weighs 10 million times the mass of our sun. That makes it about twice the size of the black hole in our own galaxy.

Astronomers theorize that a close encounter with a neighboring galaxy billions of years ago may have ripped away stars from M60-USD1 and may have led to the supermassive black hole pulling in the surviving stars close together.

“We think nearly all of the stars have been pulled away from the exterior of what once was a much bigger galaxy,” said co-author Duncan Forbes of Swinburne University in Australia in the press release.

“This leaves behind just the very dense nucleus of the former galaxy, and an overly massive black hole.”

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, September 26, 2013

Pakistan's 'Earthquake Island' A Short Time Wonder Says Experts

Gwadar: A small island of mud and rock created by the huge earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan has fascinated locals but experts -- who found methane gas rising from it -- say it is unlikely to last long.

The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on Tuesday in Baluchistan's remote Awaran district, killing at least 271 people and affecting hundreds of thousands.

Off the coastline near the port of Gwadar, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the epicentre, locals were astonished to see the dark grey mass of rock and mud that had emerged from the waves in the Arabian Sea.

"It is not a small thing, but a huge thing which has emerged from under the water," Gwadar resident Muhammad Rustam told AFP.

"It looked very, very strange to me and also a bit scary because suddenly a huge thing has emerged from the water."

Enterprising boat owners were doing a brisk trade ferrying curious sightseers to the island -- dubbed "Earthquake Mountain" by locals.

Mohammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography, said a team of experts had visited the island and found methane gas rising.

"Our team found bubbles rising from the surface of the island which caught fire when a match was lit and we forbade our team to start any flame. It is methane gas," Danish said on GEO television news.

The island is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres) high, up to 300 feet wide and up to 120 feet long, he said. It sits about 650 feet from the coast.

The surface was a solid but muddy mix of stones, sand and water with visible cracks, said an AFP cameraman who visited the island. Dead fish and sea plants lay on the surface.

Gary Gibson, a seismologist with Australia's University of Melbourne, said the new island was likely to be a "mud volcano", created by methane gas forcing material upwards during the violent shaking of the earthquake.

"It's happened before in that area but it's certainly an unusual event, very rare," Gibson told AFP, adding that it was "very curious" to see such activity some 400 kilometres from the quake's epicentre.

The so-called island is not a fixed structure but a body of mud that will be broken down by wave activity and dispersed over time, the scientist said.


A similar event happened in the same area in 1945 when an 8.1-magnitude earthquake at Makran triggered the formation of mud volcanoes off Gwadar.

Professor Shamim Ahmed Shaikh, chairman of the department of geology at Karachi University, said the island, which has not been officially named, would disperse within a couple of months.

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, September 26, 2013

The Moon Atleast 100 Million Years Younger!

How old is the moon? Not as old as we once thought.

The moon is likely to be 4.4 billion to 4.45 billion years old, or about 100 million years younger than previously thought, according to new research by geochemist Richard Carlson of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

It may be the closest body to us in space, but scientists are still not sure exactly how, or when, it formed.

The current working theory suggests that the moon formed when a large proto-planet plowed into the early Earth, creating a major explosion that sent huge amounts of rocky debris into space.

While most of that material returned to Earth, the theory suggests some of it stayed in space, forming a disk around the Earth that eventually grew together to form the moon.

While other scientists continue to improve their models of what this giant impact may have looked like, Carlson is trying to determine when it happened.

Like other scientists before him, he has been using radioactive dating to determine the age of lunar rocks collected during the Apollo missions.

Previous work in this area had a large margin of error, but Carlson says improved technology has allowed him to narrow that margin significantly.

"Back in the 1970s, you couldn't distinguish between 4.45 and 4.55 billion years," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Today, we can, and everything we are seeing suggests the 4.4 billion number."


One of the most interesting implications of Carlson's research is to imagine what the Earth might have been like before it had a moon.

"We know the age of the solar system very well -- 4.568 billion years," Carlson said. "So the Earth may have had two phases of its life -- one before the giant impact, and another one greatly modified by the impact."

Carlson presented his research this week at the "Origins of the Moon" meeting of the Royal Society.

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Zengrab Lanewatch : Catches Traffic Violation 50 Times More

ZenGrab LaneWatch is a digital wireless traffic enforcement camera - also being called the super robocam - that provides unattended CCTV based video evidence of Bus Lane, Bus Gate and No Entry traffic contraventions. Designed to bring forth efficient means of traffic enforcement, this super camera is capable of tracking even the minor-most of traffic violations. Soon to be introduced in the UK,

the ZenGrab LaneWatch is being reported to catch up to 50 times as many drivers as conventional speed cameras. That's like ten times more safety on the roads. These digital cameras wil be attached to the lampposts and monitor the movement of motorists who stop in yellow boxes and make illegal U-turns.

The camera head consists of two CCTV modules, one for a close up view of a vehicle number plate and one for a wide angle view of the context of any possible offence. The Camera Head has its own Infra-red illumination to aid identification in all weather conditions and has an operating range of up to 50 meters. A system called ANPR or Automatic Number Plate Recognition is used to trigger the Evidence Processor and to identify vehicles using a Bus Lane, Bus Gate or One Way Street. Used in combination with the optional ZenGrab Vehicle ID module the LaneWatch can automatically identify the contravening vehicles make, model, colour, number of seats, weight, CO2 rating etc.

The footage is transmitted by 3G to the council to decide whether to issue penalty or not. Developed by Zenco Systems, who happen to be the leading providers of digital traffic and parking contravention enforcement solutions in the UK, this camera system has already been used during the London Olympics to enforce the Games Lanes reserved for athletes and officials. Not just that,

the LaneWatch camera comes as standard with a 3G cellular wireless evidence transmission system. However, it is also available with Mesh, Wi-Fi, ADSL and Fibre transmission interfaces.

Speaking of enforcements and traffic violations, we would like to know the opinion of fellow engineers - what do you think is the best practice for avoiding traffic and accidents? Share your technological solutions with us in comments section below.

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Life Discovered In Stratosphere, Are Alien Life Forms Coming In To Earth's Atmosphere?

The team, led by the University of Sheffield, found small organisms that could have come from space after sending a specially designed balloon to 27 km into the stratosphere during the recent Perseid meteor shower.

"Most people will assume that these biological particles must have just drifted up to the stratosphere from Earth, but it is generally accepted that a particle of the size found cannot be lifted from Earth to heights of, for example, 27 km," said Professor Milton Wainwright from the University's Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

"The only known exception is by a violent volcanic eruption, none of which occurred within three years of the sampling trip.

"In the absence of a mechanism by which large particles like these can be transported to the stratosphere we can only conclude that the biological entities originated from space.

"Our conclusion then is that life is continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to this planet and it almost certainly did not originate here," he said.

"If life does continue to arrive from space then we have to completely change our view of biology and evolution. New textbooks will have to be written!" Wainwright said.


The balloon, designed by Chris Rose and Alex Baker from the University of Sheffield's Leonardo Centre for Tribology, was launched near Chester and carried microscope studs which were only exposed to the atmosphere when the balloon reached heights of between 22 and 27 km.

The balloon landed safely and intact near Wakefield. The scientists then discovered that they had captured a diatom fragment and some unusual biological entities from the stratosphere, all of which are too large to have come from Earth.

Wainwright said stringent precautions had been taken against the possibility of contamination during sampling and processing, and said the group was confident that the biological organisms could only have come from the stratosphere.

The findings have been published in the Journal of Cosmology.

Wainwright's team is hoping to extend and confirm their results by carrying out the test again in October to coincide with the upcoming Haley's Comet-associated meteorite shower when there will be large amounts of cosmic dust.

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- Unknown Updated at: Saturday, September 21, 2013

Voyager Out To Infinity : NASA

Scientists say the probe's instruments indicate it has moved beyond the bubble of hot gas from our Sun and is now moving in the space between the stars.

Launched in 1977, Voyager was sent initially to study the outer planets, but then just kept on going.

Today, the veteran Nasa mission is almost 19 billion km (12 billion miles) from home.

This distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers here on Earth.

"This is really a key milestone that we'd been hoping we would reach when we started this project over 40 years ago - that we would get a spacecraft into interstellar space," said Prof Ed Stone, the chief scientist on the venture.

"Scientifically it's a major milestone, but also historically - this is one of those journeys of exploration like circumnavigating the globe for the first time or having a footprint on the Moon for the first time. This is the first time we've begun to explore the space between the stars," he told BBC News.

Sensors on Voyager had been indicating for some time that its local environment had changed.

The data that finally convinced the mission team to call the jump to interstellar space came from the probe's Plasma Wave Science (PWS) instrument. This can measure the density of charged particles in Voyager's vicinity.

Readings taken in April/May this year and October/November last year revealed a near-100-fold jump in the number of protons occupying every cubic metre of space.

Scientists have long theorised such a spike would eventually be observed if Voyager could get beyond the influence of the magnetic fields and particle wind that billow from the surface of the Sun.

When the Voyager team put the new data together with information from the other instruments onboard, they calculated the moment of escape to have occurred on or about 25 August, 2012.

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- Unknown Updated at: Saturday, September 14, 2013

First Time Ever Two Civilian Ships To Help India's Mars Spacecraft

BANGALORE: For the first time in the history of India's space flights, two civilian ships will play a supporting role in India's forthcoming flight to Mars designated as the Mars Orbiter Mission.

The launch is slated for lift-off between October 21 and November 19 from Sriharikota.

On Wednesday, the 1,350 kg Mars Orbiter spacecraft with the five payloads was unveiled to the media for the first time at Isro's Satellite Centre. It was in the process of being fine-tuned and the clean room was the scene of hectic activity with scientists clad in their white robes attending to the orbiter.

The orbiter is set to be moved to Sriharikota on September 27. Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, B S Chandrasekhar, director of Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network ( Istrac), said that Shipping Corporation of India's 'Yamuna' and 'Nalanda' ships will be positioned in the South Pacific Ocean. "They are now fully equipped and will depart for the South Pacific Ocean from Visakhapatnam on September 15 and will support the mission during the launch phase,'' he said.

He said that in a previous flight—the space capsule recovery experiment mission — a naval ship was used. "This is the first time we are using a civilian ship for a major interplanetary mission,'' he added.

Chandrasekhar said that the current plans project that the 70-metre antenna of Nasa's deep space network at Canberra in Australia will acquire the first signal of the crucial Mars orbiter insertion in September 2014 after a nearly 300-day flight.

A liquid apogee motor will play a major role in the orbit insertion. "This motor has a major part in orbital manoeuvres and has to restart for the insertion after a 300-day flight,'' an Isro official said.

SK Shivakumar, director of Isro Satellite Centre, said progress in the Indian Mars programme has been satisfactory. "We were able to achieve because we were able to regroup ourselves,'' he said.

Mylswamy Annadurai, programme director, said the mission will mark a quantum jump in technology. It posed a major challenge because globally the success rate of Mars missions was not even 30%, he said. Lessons learnt from the Chandrayaan mission have been embedded into the Mars mission. "The powering system of the spacecraft has been changed,'' he said.

S Arunan, project director, said that the mission had incorporated a number of redundant systems to ensure a successful Mars capture of the spacecraft. "The on-board autonomy called for the development of 68 new software modules,'' he said, adding that they have concentrated on those areas where foreign Mars missions had failed.

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, September 12, 2013

NASA's New Smart Cam To Explore Alien World

NASA has developed a new camera system that can not only take pictures of alien rocks, it also draws meaning out of them — allowing a planet rover to decide if it should keep exploring a particular area or move on.

The Curiosity rover exploring Mars boasts impressive technology but future rovers will need more smart technology to explore more distant worlds, researchers said.

To help future rover and space missions spend less time waiting for instructions from Earth, Wagstaff and her colleagues developed an advanced two-lens camera, called TextureCam.

Although Curiosity and other rovers can already, on their own, distinguish rocks from other objects in photos they take, they must send images all the way to Earth for scientific analysis of a particular rock.

This process costs time and limits the potential scientific scope of rovers’ missions. TextureCam can do the analysis by itself, researchers said.

At the beginning of each Martian day, called a sol, scientists on Earth upload an agenda to a Mars rover. This scientific schedule details nearly all of the rover’s movements: roll forward so many meters, snap a photo, scoop a soil sample, run rudimentary tests on it and move on.

Even moving at light speed, instructions from Earth take about 20 minutes to reach the surface of Mars. This 40-minute round-trip makes real-time control of the rover impossible.

On Jupiter’s moon Europa, where astrobiologists suspect extraterrestrial life could exist, the delay balloons to over 90 minutes.

Mars-to-Earth communication costs precious power and trickles at a bandwidth of around 0.012 megabits per second — about 250 times slower than a 3G cellphone network.

Mars orbiters can help speed up the data transfer rate, though the satellites only orbit into correct alignment a few short minutes each day. Curiosity’s constrained connection limits the number of Martian images it can send back to Earth.

“If the rover itself could prioritise what’s scientifically important, it would suddenly have the capability to take more images than it knows it can send back. That goes hand in hand with its ability to discover new things that weren’t anticipated,” said Wagstaff.

When TextureCam’s stereo cameras snap 3D images, a special processor separate from the rover’s main computer analyses the pictures.

By recognising textures in the photos, the processor distinguishes between sand, rocks and sky. The processor then uses the size and distance to rocks in the picture to determine if any are scientifically important layered rocks.

The system’s built-in processor avoids straining the rover’s busy main processor. When TextureCam spots an interesting rock, it can either upload a high-resolution image back to Earth or send a message to the main processor to move towards the rock and take a sample.

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, September 10, 2013

LADEE Recovers, NASA Moon Mission Back On Track

NASA's newest robotic explorer rocketed into space late Friday in an unprecedented moonshot from Virginia that dazzled sky watchers along the East Coast.

But the LADEE spacecraft quickly ran into equipment trouble, and while NASA assured everyone early Saturday that the lunar probe was safe and on a perfect track for the moon, officials acknowledged the problem needs to be resolved in the next two to three weeks.

S. Peter Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, which developed the spacecraft, told reporters he's confident everything will be working properly in the next few days.

LADEE's reaction wheels were turned on to orient and stabilize the spacecraft, which was spinning too fast after it separated from the final rocket stage, Worden said. But the computer automatically shut the wheels down, apparently because of excess current. He speculated the wheels may have been running a little fast.

Worden stressed there is no rush to "get these bugs ironed out."

The LADEE spacecraft, which is charged with studying the lunar atmosphere and dust, soared aboard an unmanned Minotaur rocket a little before midnight from Virginia's Eastern Shore.

"Godspeed on your journey to the moon, LADEE," Launch Control said. Flight controllers applauded and exchanged high-fives following the successful launch. "We are headed to the moon!" NASA said in a tweet.

It was a change of venue for NASA, which normally launches moon missions from Cape Canaveral, Fla. But it provided a rare light show along the East Coast for those blessed with clear skies.

NASA urged sky watchers to share their launch pictures through the website Flickr, and the photos and sighting reports quickly poured in from New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New Jersey, Rhode Island, eastern Pennsylvania and Virginia, among other places.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or LADEE, pronounced "LA'-dee," is taking a roundabout path to the moon, making three huge laps around Earth before getting close enough to pop into lunar orbit.

Unlike the quick three-day Apollo flights to the moon, LADEE will need a full month to reach Earth's closest neighbor. An Air Force Minotaur V rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., provided the ride from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

LADEE, which is the size of a small car, is expected to reach the moon on Oct. 6.

Scientists want to learn the composition of the moon's ever-so-delicate atmosphere and how it might change over time. Another puzzle, dating back decades, is whether dust actually levitates from the lunar surface.

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- Unknown Updated at: Sunday, September 08, 2013

Last Day For Registration on Mars One Mission!

The final day has come for Indians and people around the world to apply for a one-way trip to Mars and never return to Earth for the rest of their lives.

The Mars One Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023. Till now, more than 1,65,000 people across the world and over 8,000 Indians have applied to become the lucky few to live on the planet for the rest of their lives.

Vinod Kotiya of Bhopal is one of the 'wannabe astrounauts' to have applied for Mars One mission.

The 31-year-old says, "It is my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. I even cleared the Pilot Aptitude Battery Test for Indian Air Force but could not make it. Mars One is a surprise opportunity for me to have another go at my dream."

However, Kotiya had not informed his wife about his plan to visit Mars on a one way trip and never return. He says, "While uploading my profile on the site, I did not tell anyone, not even my wife. Initially, she thought it was a joke but later when things got serious, she threatened to lay in front of the space craft at the time of launching."

Kotiya feels that it is destiny to go to Mars and would like the opportunity to conduct experiments and study the red planet for the sake of science and humanity but won't abandon his family and would like to return someday.

He says, "I want to tell them that I am going to live on other planet in a different way as I live here. I hope that technology will evolve someday to get me back to earth. I will do everything to take care of my family."

Amulya Nidhi Rastogi, a 20-year-old mechanical engineer from Gurgaon, is one of the 8,000 applicants, who wishes to travel to Mars on a one-way trip to Mars with a hope of fulfilling the purpose of his life. He says, "Every human comes into this world with a purpose. I feel living on Mars is mine."

The Delhi-born lad is confident that if selected, he won't have to prepare himself as he feels that he has the patience and the mental stability required for it.

However, Amulya won't stop chasing his dream if not selected in the programme. "I’m doing my Bachelor’s while preparing for Mars One. In 2015, if everything goes as planned, I’ll have a Bachelor’s degree and I’ll be a Mars One Astronaut. But in case, I fail to make it to Mars One, I’ll continue with my Masters and PhD. After completing those degrees, I will try to become an astronaut for NASA, ESA, ISRO or some other space agency and then travel to Mars. Mars is the goal."

In April 2013, the Astronaut Selection Programme was launched in New York and Shanghai. Round 1 is an online application open to all nationalities. The selection programme proceeds with three additional rounds over the course of two years.

At the end of it around six teams of four individuals are selected for training. A new batch of the Astronaut Selection Programme begins every year to replenish the training pool regularly.

An analogue of the Mars habitat is to be constructed on Earth for technology testing and training purposes.

With just hours left before the registration ends, people around the world are waiting for their names to be short listed for the first-of-its-kind expedition.

Anyone above 18 years can enter the programme at http://www.mars-one.com/en/

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- Unknown Updated at: Monday, September 02, 2013

Puerto Rican Parrot Wins A Close Shave From Extinction : Science Desk

A species whose total count was as low as 13 has now survived 4 decades and wins its race against extinction. The reports have come from RIO ABAJO NATURE PRESERVE, Puerto Rico, where the Puerto Rican parrots who were marked close to extinction has survived in captivity and a minor percentage in wild to increase their total count to 400, where 300 lives in the nature preserve and 100 are in the wild.

A species whose total count was as low as 13 has now survived 4 decades and wins its race against extinction. The reports have come from RIO ABAJO NATURE PRESERVE, Puerto Rico, where the Puerto Rican parrots who were marked close to extinction has survived in captivity and a minor percentage in wild to increase their total count to 400, where 300 lives in the nature preserve and 100 are in the wild.

Puerto Rican Parrots are the only species of parrots native to the area and one among the 30 parrot species available in America. They are characterized by their red foreheads and turquoise feathers under their wings. They only grow up to 1 foot in length and are famous for the secrecy and single mate for life. They reproduce once every year.

The Rio Abajo Nature Preserve is quite happy with the achievement, "This is a huge step" says Gustavo Oliveri, Coordinator of Rio Abajo Parrot reintroduction program, "It shows the population can sustain on itself". The wild parrot nests were recently discovered by scientists and the nests also had Puerto Rican Parrot eggs. Although the eggs did not hatch, but this is considered quite a success by the community. Although birds in captivity are having the chicks fine and this year, the nature preserve had 51 parrots born and 15 were born in wild.

There were close to 1 million parrots in Rio in late 1800's, but the population decreased humongous counts when the habitats started getting destroyed following the clearing of forests. By 1950's the population was recorded as 200 and by 1975 the count reached to 13. This was the closest that any recorded animal reached, so close to extinction. Finally with the efforts of scientists, the count was increased to 50 by 1989 - but unfortunate turn of events caused the count to reduce, following the Hurricane Hugo.

Captive breeding started in 1972 and first chick was born in 1979.

Read Report by Philly.com

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- Unknown Updated at: Monday, August 19, 2013