Astronauts to Aquanauts?! Amazing!

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
Can you believe it?! Astronauts to Aquanauts! AMAZING! According to a news article which I had read a few days ago, it is written that astronauts now have to work and live under water! Obviously, it is easy to conjure up images of astronauts working in deep black space, however, nowadays there are also astronauts living and working on the sea floor, where they conduct experiments to prepare for future space missions.


To prove this, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Chris Hadfield has actually spent most of the past two weeks about 19 meters below the waves off the Florida coast! During these period of time, he was leading a two-week NASA mission aboard the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, which is run by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Chris Hadfield's team includes a NASA astronaut, an undersea engineer and a scientist. They live inside Aquarius and carry out experiments in the lab; at the same time, exploring the blue depths outside the porthole windows.

According to the news article, Chris Hadfield said that, "I found that when I was working outside here over the last couple of weeks, I would suddenly notice where I am while I'm working. I'm busy working on some part of a space suit design, and then an angel fish goes by or a ray scuttles across the bottom of the ocean, and it reminds me of both the comfort-level I've gotten to and the amazing difference of where I am,".

During the two weeks, Hadfield was on the sea floor inside the Aquarius underwater habitat's 122 square meters of living and working space which was anchored next to a coral reef, five and half kilometers off Key Largo in the Florida Keys.

 
Even on the ocean floor, Aquarius is still visible on the World Wide Web where Commander Hadfield can be seen via webcam on NASA's web site. He stands in a narrow white room with stainless steel equipment as he speaks to reporters using something that looks akin to a cordless phone.


It is the round window that looks out into the pale blue water that provides the biggest clue to Hadfield's whereabouts. The view might be serene, however, the undersea environment is potentially deadly to humans, just as space is. Just some contextual knowledge, he has completed two spacewalks in his 18 years as an astronaut and he said there are similarities between working in space and in the sea.

"They are remarkably similar. You are wearing gear to protect you from an environment that would kill you. Every breath is amplified so you sound like [famed Star War's character] Darth Vader when you're out walking around out there. You're listening to help from someone inside the vehicle and someone back at mission control, as they try to help give you advice as you work on something complex outside," he said.


In his 'vacation' underwater, it is said that the crew will have conducted a total of 52 so-called "space walks" in the sea! Chris Hadfield also said that these underwater tests actually help astronauts to figure out how much mass they need to propel themselves forward when in space.


So, as you can see, what astronauts have to do now is not just flying in space or making a first step on a planet, now they are faced with greater challenges and make mankind's first step on the seafloor...... (Well, perhaps lots of people had already done it.)
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News Article: Monster Black Hole Flung Out of Galaxy?!

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
WARNING!
ASTRONOMY FANS!
WARNING!

You may not believe what I am writing in this post, but I assure you will not regret reading this. Can you believe it? According to a new study, a monster black hole has been flung from its home galaxy and is now careening through space! Argh......!


  
 
Based on the news article on Yahoo news, astronomers had spotted a supermassive black hole, which is usually found lurking in the center of galaxies, hightailing it out of a distant galaxy at a considerable speed! The cosmic ejection is taking place more than half a billion light-years from Earth. This shocking discovery was made with archived observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
 
 
Although you might think that black holes themselves do not shine, but the material they gobble up actually heats as it falls in and releases radiation in the form of X-ray light! Normally, these bright X-ray spots are seen in the centers of galaxies, but in this case, researchers had found one offset to the side.

 

The kicked-out black hole could result from a special set of circumstances, according to computer simulations. For your information, supermassive black holes can contain the mass of more than a billion suns! Just how they accumulate all that mass is unknown, but some astronomers believe that they are formed when two smaller black holes collide earlier.

 

 
Depending on the direction and speed with which the two black holes rotate before they merge, the resulting gigantor may be thrown out of the galaxy, resulting in the cosmic interloper spotted in the Chandra observations.


So what do you think we have to do now? Of course, RUN......! (Just kidding!) Although these astronomy theories seem to be quite simple and solid, yet mysteries still remain unsolved......

  
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Can you see Venus - the 'Evening Star'......?

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
Last Sunday evening, 16 May 2010, lucky people, probably you, might have recieved a "front-row seat" with a common and yet always awesome sight – the “evening star” visibly sitting on top of a crescent moon.



At that amazing moment, people were all abuzz by this breathtaking sight as people took photos of this astrological occurrence and posted it on social media sites such as yahoo.


 
As most of you may have already known, the “evening star” is actually one of the planets in the solar system, Venus. Based on my research, Venus is one of the brightest object in the night sky after Moon so people, in the early days (before we has astronomy), thought it was a star.




Actually, when Venus is seen in the easter sky before the sunrise, it is usually referred to as a “morning star” and when it is seen in the evening in the west after sunset which is similar to what had happened on Sunday evening, it is called an “evening star.”


So how does Venus appears as a star? This is due to Venus’ orbit which lies inside Earth’s orbit around the Sun. When the orbit of Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun, it also reflects the light of the Sun to earth at the same time so that when it moves from the evening to the morning sky, thus it becomes very visible to us and appears as a “star”.

Maybe, some people who have seen this view may think that some natural phenomenon might occur when the crescent moon and Venus are being so close together. But trust me, in my opinion, this natural phenomenon has no effect on Earth. These planetary alignments have been happening for the longest time and till now, there is never been a documented effect to our planet. So don't worry........

 
However, have you ever wondered why the crescent moon and star has come to symbolize Islam? If I am not wrong, the crescent moon and star symbol actually pre-dates Islam by several thousand years. Most sources say that these ancient celestial symbols were used by the peoples of Central Asia and Siberia in their worship of the sun, moon and sky gods. In this Wikipedia article, it says that possibly the symbol became associated with the Muslim faith when the Ottoman Empire became affiliated with the Muslim world.


So, now you can see how fascinating the 'Evening star' and the crescent moon are! Isn't interesting? And good news to astronomy fans who may have missed their chance to see this breathtaking sight, you may want to visit the following link for more images of the 'Evening Star' and the crescent moon: http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=rec&w=all&q=venus+moon&m=text 
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News Article: Studies show that spaceflight compromises immune system of astronauts?!

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
After reading the stunning news on alien hijacking a spaceship, I believe you - astronomy fans are all hungry for more fascinating news about our space, right? Well, today, I've just read another astronomy news article from sifynews.com regarding astronauts (2010-05-15). Based on the news article, it is written that spaceflight actually compromises immune system of astronauts! WOW!
According to a new study, spaceflight takes a toll on the genes controlling immune and stress response, which apparently leads to more sickness among astronauts as compared to us - the 'Earthlings'.

These stresses that go with weightlessness actually confined the crew quarters from being away from family and friends and also have a busy work schedule which eventually cause most of them not having sufficient amount of rest, thus resulting in health problems on the immune system.

Here is what a professor said in his views: "Taken together, our results hint at the possibility that an astronaut's immune system might be compromised in space," said immunobiologist Ty Lebsack at the University of Arizona, the lead author of the study.

In order to support their hypothesis, they had actually compared gene-expression patterns in thymuses from four healthy mice that had spent 13 days aboard NASA's STS-118 Endeavour Space Shuttle to those from an equal number of control mice on the ground.

 
After the experiment, they found that 970 individual genes in the thymus of space-flown mice were up or down-regulated by a 1.5 fold change or greater! So, when these changes were averaged, 12 genes in the thymus tissue of all four space-flown mice were significantly up or down-regulated.

"The altered genes we observed were found to primarily affect signaling molecules that play roles in programmed cell death and regulate how the body responds to stress," said Lebsack.


Therefore, these results relate with experiments carried out on the ground to study how microgravity affects immune cells. Well, although astronauts seem to healthy on the news, they had actually suffered quite a lot in terms of their immune system. Perhaps, this news article may seem unrelated to you but I think it is quite important to know about this. So, being an astronaut isn't that easy anymore, right?


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News Article: NASA spacecraft hijacked by aliens...?!

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
Recently, I had read a SHOCKING, UNBELIEVABLE and ......STUNNING astronomy news from news.com.au. You may wonder how shocking it is, but I assure you will not believe what you are about to read. According to the news article on news.com.au on 13 May 2010, it is written that NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft which, according to German UFO expert Hartwig Hausdorf, may have been hijacked by aliens! OH MY GOD......!

Based on the news article, A GERMAN UFO expert, Hartwig Hausdorf has claimed that a NASA spacecraft, Voyager 2, may have been hijacked by aliens - who are now attempting to contact Earth!



Hartwig Hausdorf claims that Voyager 2 - an unmanned interplanetary probe that blasted into the space 33 years ago - has suddenly started transmitting some strange, unintelligible signals.
Last month, the probe had actually began sending back distorted messages from its location near the edge of the solar system that baffled NASA scientists who were unable to decode, Mr Hausdorf says

"It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe, thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth," the author of UFOs - They Are Still Flying told Bild.


The signal from Voyager 2 - which takes 13 hours to reach the Earth - broke off fully on April 22.
NASA said engineers were working to solve a data transmission fault. The space agency has not commented specifically on Mr Hausdorf's comments, although it says the fault is likely to be a glitch in the probe's computer memory.


In my opinion, I do not quite believe Hartwig Hausdorf's claim as I feel that this is rather quite impossible! So, just imagine a big-headed alien controlling a spaceship, sitting on the chair, pressing buttons...... can this be possible?! I mean this sounds quite ridiculous and too imaginative to me. Well, of course, I cannot confirm and conclude that this is just his imagination, because miracle does occur! A rather strange one.


Well, personally, I believe this strange signals are actually some fault caused by probably some problems in the spaceship computer memory and system. Obviously, this sounds more convincing and persuasive to me, rather than an Alien invasion on a spaceship!


So, for some contextual knowledge, both Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, were offically launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Three decades on, they are the most distant human-made objects in outer space! Now, Voyager 1 is currently more than 8.5 billion miles from Earth! It will soon travel beyond the heliosphere - a bubble the sun creates around the solar system - into interstellar space, scientists say.



So if you are interested in this piece of strange news article, you may want to visit the following link on news.com.au: http://www.news.com.au/technology/nasa-spacecraft-hijacked-by-aliens/story-e6frfro0-1225865827901?from=public_rss

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Who was Earth named after......? Any idea?

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
Recently, I had just read a science research article regarding the origin of the names of the planets in the universe. In my opinion, it seems like almost all planets or stars are named after either Greek or Roman gods (strange......?!). So let's take Uranus for example. Uranus, one of the planets in the solar system, is actually named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus, the father of Kronos (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter).


But then, why is Earth named 'Earth'......? And then who named the Earth 'Earth'? When? Why?
Perhaps, Earth is also named after ancient gods. However, this seems to be wrong! The Earth is actually the only planet whose name in English is not derived from Greco-Roman mythology! According to my research, the name 'Earth' originates from the 8th century Anglo-Saxon word erda, which means ground or soil.


  
However, in my opinion, I think it's quite impossible to find out who first named the planet 'Earth'. To be frank, I'm not really an expert on words and word origins of these planets, but this seems likely that people used Earth to mean 'land' and then it was the natural thing to refer to all the land and the planet. So that's why the Earth is named 'Earth'! If I'm not wrong...... :)


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Check out for my latest photo album......!

Author: Chua Song Yang Posted under:
Hi all astronomy fans! Now that everyone knows at least something about our space, I think you will be even more fascinated by the marvellous photos of the space and the UNIVERSE! So, please explore the page on "My photo album" for more of these amazing photos! Here is the link: http://2p203chuasongyang.blogspot.com/p/my-photo-album.html
Enjoy.

http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/UNC/UNC186/web-enjoy-site_~u17388259.jpg

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