September 12, 2013

Voyager Boldly Goes Beyond Our Stars - 36 Years Later and Still Going!

NEVER before has a human-built spacecraft traveled so far. NASA's Voyager 1 probe has left the solar system and is wandering the galaxy, US scientists have said.

The spacecraft, which looks like a combination of a satellite dish and an old television set with rabbit ear antennas, was launched in 1977 on a mission to explore planets in our solar system.

Against all odds, Voyager kept on moving and now is about 19 billion kilometres from our Sun in a cold, dark part of space that is between the stars, said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist.

"We are indeed in interstellar space for the first time," said Stone, who is based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"We got there. This is something we all hoped when we started on this 40 years ago," Stone said. "None of us knew anything could last as long as the two Voyager spacecraft."

They discovered new details about the nature of Saturn's rings and found volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.

Voyager 2 traveled on to Uranus and Neptune, before the duo's mission was extended to explore the outer limits of the Sun's influence.

The precise position of Voyager has been fiercely debated in the past year, because scientists have not known exactly what it would look like when the spacecraft crossed the boundary of the solar system -- and the tool on board that was meant to detect the change broke long ago.

However, US space agency scientists now agree that Voyager is officially outside the protective bubble known as the heliosphere that extends beyond all the planets in our solar system.

Their findings -- which describe the conditions that show Voyager actually left the solar system in August 2012 -- are published in the US journal Science.

NASA said Voyager 1 "is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our Sun are still evident."

Voyager 1 -- with Voyager 2 a few years behind in its travels -- sent back data to scientists on Earth on August 25 last year, showing an abrupt drop in energetic charged particles, or cosmic rays, that are produced inside the heliosphere.

Scientists expected that the direction of the magnetic field in space would reverse at the barrier known as the heliopause.

The Voyager 1 magnetometer did not show this change, leading scientists to be extra cautious about declaring whether or not the spacecraft had left the solar system.

However, an analysis of data from Voyager's plasma wave science instrument between April 9 and May 22 this year showed the spacecraft was in a region with an electron density of about 0.08 per cubic centimeter.

Astrophysicists have projected that the density of electrons in interstellar space would be between 0.05 and 0.22 per cubic centimetre, placing Voyager squarely in that range.

"This historic step is even more exciting because it marks the beginning of a new era of exploration for Voyager, the exploration of the space between the stars," said Stone.
While the Voyager team has reached a consensus, not all are convinced.

"I don't think it's a certainty Voyager is outside now," space physicist David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas told Science magazine.
"It may well have crossed," he said. "But without a magnetic field direction change, I don't know what to make of it."

The spacecraft is expected to keep cruising, though the radioisotope thermo-electric generators that power it are beginning to run down.

Voyager's instruments will have to shut down permanently in 2025, Science reported. However, experts say the spacecraft may keep traveling indefinitely.

NASA said the total cost of the twin Voyager missions has been $US988 million dollars, including launch, mission operations and the spacecraft's nuclear batteries.

"Even though it took 36 years, it's just an amazing thing to me," said co-author Bill Kurth, of the University of Iowa.

"I think the Voyager mission is a much grander voyage of humankind than anyone had dreamed."

With many thanks to The Australian.

Below: this 1977 artists' impression shows what was expected to be Voyager 1's four-year mission to Saturn.

Thirty-six years and 19 billion km later, it has left the solar system - and is still going. Image: NASA

Top Voyager picture: thanks to NPR

Voyager 1 Got to Deep Space on Less Memory Than Your iPhone 5

September 09, 2013

The lost Van Gogh: Painting found in Norwegian attic is confirmed as priceless work by Dutch master

A long-lost Vincent Van Gogh painting, the first full-size canvas by the Dutch master discovered since 1928, has been identified by the Dutch Van Gogh Museum .

Sunset at Montmajour depicts trees, bushes and sky with Van Gogh's familiar thick brush strokes. He described it in a letter to his brother, Theo, saying it was painted on July 4, 1888 'on a stony heath where small twisted oaks grow.'

Museum experts said it was authenticated by letters, style and materials used, and they had traced its history.

Director Axel Rueger described the discovery as a 'once-in-a-lifetime experience' at an unveiling ceremony.

The museum said the painting now belongs to an unidentified private collector and will be on display at the museum from September 24.

It did not disclose full details of how the painting had been recovered, but said that it had been owned by a Norwegian man who had been told it was not by Van Gogh, so he put it in the attic.

Mr Rueger said the museum had itself rejected the painting's authenticity in the 1990s, in part because it was not signed. But new research techniques and a two-year investigation had convinced them.

He added it has taken two years since the masterpiece was brought to them before they concluded that it was in fact an original Van Gogh.

Mr Rueger said the research involved technical and stylistic research and began with a visit the setting of the scene, in Arles, France, to look at whether the paining was an accurate representation of the landscape.

He said the palette used for this scene matched exactly the colours the researchers saw in Arles.

The three-man team of researchers then closely examined works created by Van Gogh one week after this piece, and found that they were painted on 'exactly the same kind of canvas'.
Comparing this piece to works painted at that time, Mr Rueger said 'the way that he handled the paint and how he painted the trees' were very similar for Van Gogh during this period.

Finally, the researchers examined the provenance of the work, and dug up old letters and inventory from a Van Gogh collection. Mr Rueger said this specific piece was described in two letters and was listed among Theo van Gogh's collection as number 180, and that number can still be seen on the back of the canvas. The work was sold in 1901.

Researcher Teio Meedendorp said he and other researchers 'have found answers to all the key questions, which is remarkable for a painting that has been lost for more than 100 years.'

Vincent Van Gogh struggled with bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and died of a self-inflicted gun wound in 1890. He sold only one painting while he was alive, though his work was just beginning to win acclaim. The Van Gogh Museum, which houses 140 of his works, receives more than a million visitors annually, and Van Gogh paintings are among the most valuable in the world.

Mr Rueger described 'Sunset' as ambitious, because the canvas is relatively large, at 36.7 by 28.9 inches.

Van Gogh referred to the work in two other letters in the same summer it was painted, but he said he considered it a failure in several respects.

The location it depicts is near Arles, France, where Van Gogh was living at the time, near Montmajour hill, and the ruins of an abbey of the same name. The ruins can be seen in the background of the work, on the left side.

Researcher Mr Meedendorp said it belongs 'to a special group of experimental works that Van Gogh at times thought had lesser value than we tend to nowadays.'

The painting, which has changed hands several times since the Norwegian owner first came forward with it having removed it form his attic, will be on display at the museum in Amsterdam for a year.

With many thanks to The Daily Mail for the story and pictures. More details at link.

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September 08, 2013

Isaac Asimov's 1964 Predictions About 2014 Are Frighteningly Accurate

By Charlie Warzel and John Herrman

In 1964, famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov ventured a guess at what you might find if you set foot inside the 2014 World’s Fair. Using his gift for envisioning future technology, Asimov’s predictions from 50 years out are both stunningly accurate and perhaps a little bit depressing. Here’s a look at what he got right.

“One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better.”

“Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare ‘automeals,’ heating water and converting it to coffee.”

“Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semiprepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing.”

“The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course.”

“Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘Robot-brains.’”

“There will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface.”

“By 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony.”

“For short-range travel, moving sidewalks (with benches on either side, standing room in the center) will be making their appearance in downtown sections.”

“In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000.”

“Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth.”

“Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone.”

“In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World’s Fair will be such a 3-D TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen.”

“Part of the General Electric exhibit today consists of a school of the future in which such present realities as closed-circuit TV and programmed tapes aid the teaching process.”

“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.”

“Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom.”

“The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.”

“Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!”

It’s worth noting that, while quite impressive, Asimov didn’t get everything right. 2014 will most surely come and go without “jets of compressed air [that] will lift land vehicles off the highways.” He also predicted that the entire East Coast from Boston to Washington would merge into one large mega city, which seems unlikely at this point in time. But perhaps the most telling (and disheartening) is Asimov’s inaccurate notion that we’d even have a World’s Fair in 2014. But still, pretty good!

Story and pictures with many thanks to BuzzFeed – more pictures at the link.

More credits via You Tube.

Picture Credit: Cracked

September 05, 2013

Freda Kelly Recalls Her Days of Working With the Beatles - "Good Ol' Freda"

Good Ol' Freda - Official Trailer

By DAVE ITZKOFF

There are places Freda Kelly will remember all her life — sights she saw and experiences she gained as the secretary to the Beatles, their fan club and their manager, as well as a friend and trusted confidante of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr for nearly the entire duration of their history-shaping rock group.

“We were all teenagers together,” said Ms. Kelly, a Liverpool native who saw the Beatles play many early gigs there at the Cavern Club before she was hired by the band’s manager, Brian Epstein. “A bit wild, but we eventually settled down.”

Though sharing her firsthand observations about the Beatles and their astonishing ascent does not come easily for her, Ms. Kelly tells her story in “Good Ol’ Freda,” a documentary directed by Ryan White, which will receive a theatrical and on-demand release on Friday.

“I suppose it had to be done,” Ms. Kelly said in a recent phone interview. “I did want to do it eventually, for my grandson.”

Here, Ms. Kelly, now in her late 60s, delves deeper into her personal collection of Beatles memorabilia, and talks about a few favorite items that further illuminate the tale of a young woman and the four superstars she knew simply as “the boys.”