analemma over ukraine

Credit & Copyright: Vasilij Rumyantsev ( Crimean Astrophysical Obsevatory)

If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma. The Sun's apparent shift is caused by the Earth's motion around the Sun when combined with the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. The Sun will appear at its highest point of the analemma during summer and at its lowest during winter. Analemmas created from different Earth latitudes would appear at least slightly different, as well as analemmas created at a different time each day. The analemma pictured to the left was built up by Sun photographs taken from 1998 August through 1999 August from Ukraine. The foreground picture from the same location was taken during the early evening in 1999 July.

z machine

The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons. The Z machine is located at Sandia's main site in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Due to the extremely high voltage, the power feeding equipment is submerged in concentric chambers of 2 megalitres (2,000 m³) of transformer oil and 2.3 megalitres (2,300 m³) of deionized water, which act as insulators. Nevertheless, the electromagnetic pulse when the machine is discharged causes impressive lightning, referred to as "arcs and sparks" or "flashover", which can be seen around many of the metallic objects in the room. Courtesy, Sandia National Laboratories

uss iwoa

(click for full view)

USS Iowa (BB-61), the lead ship of the U.S. Navy's last class of battleship, was the fourth ship of the same name to serve in the United States Navy, but the second to be commissioned, to be named in honor of the 29th state.
Iowa's keel was laid down on 27 June 1940 at the New York Navy Yard. Nicknamed "The Big Stick," the battleship was launched on 27 August 1942 sponsored by Ilo Wallace (wife of Vice President Henry Wallace), and commissioned on 22 February 1943 with Capt. John L. McCrea in command.

Iowa earned nine battle stars for World War II service and two for Korean War service.

Status:
Maintained as part of the US Reserve FleetSlated to be donated for use as a museum ship on or around 2008

LGM-118A Peacekeeper

Picture: Testing at the Kwajalein Atoll of the Peacekeeper re-entry vehicles, all eight fired from only one missile. With live warheads, each line would represent the explosive power of twenty-five Hiroshima-sized (Little Boy) weapons.

The LGM-118A Peacekeeper was a land-based ICBM deployed by the United States starting in 1986. Under the START II treaty, which never entered into force, the missile was to be removed from the U.S. nuclear arsenal in 2005, leaving the LGM-30 Minuteman as the only type of land-based ICBM in the U.S. arsenal. In spite of the demise of START II, the last of the LGM-118A "Peacekeeper" ICBMs were decommissioned on September 19, 2005.
The Peacekeeper was a MIRVed missile; each rocket could carry up to 10 re-entry vehicles armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead/MK-21 RVs (twenty-five times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II).

LGM-118A Peacekeeper

Contractors:
Boeing, Martin Marietta, TRW and Denver Aerospace
Power:
First Stage: 500,000 lbf (2.2 MN thrust) Thiokol SR118 solid fuel motor;
Second Stage: Aerojet General SR119 solid fuel motor;
Third Stage: Hercules SR120 solid fuel motor,
Fourth Stage: Rocketdyne restartable liquid fuel motor; storable hypergolic fuel
Length: 71 ft 6 in (21.8 m)
Diameter: 7 ft 7 in (2.3 m)
Mass: 193,500 lb (87.75 metric tons)
Range: 9700-11300 km
Guidance: Inertial (AIRS), 393 ft 7 in (120 m) CEP
Payload: 8,708 lb (3950 kg), up to 10 Avco Mk-21 re-entry vehicles each carrying a 300KT (1.25 PJ) W87 warhead.

(pictures sorce: us army space & missile defense command / text sorce: wikipedia.org)

helix nebula

author: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz

date: 2007-02-12

This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet often photographed by amateur astronomers for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye.
The nebula, located about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, belongs to a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these colorful beauties were named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets like Jupiter.
Planetary nebulae are the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years.
In Spitzer's infrared view of the Helix nebula, the eye looks more like that of a green monster's. Infrared light from the outer gaseous layers is represented in blues and greens. The white dwarf is visible as a tiny white dot in the center of the picture. The red color in the middle of the eye denotes the final layers of gas blown out when the star died.
The brighter red circle in the very center is the glow of a dusty disk circling the white dwarf (the disk itself is too small to be resolved). This dust, discovered by Spitzer's infrared heat-seeking vision, was most likely kicked up by comets that survived the death of their star. Before the star died, its comets and possibly planets would have orbited the star in an orderly fashion. But when the star blew off its outer layers, the icy bodies and outer planets would have been tossed about and into each other, resulting in an ongoing cosmic dust storm. Any inner planets in the system would have burned up or been swallowed as their dying star expanded.
So far, the Helix nebula is one of only a few dead-star systems in which evidence for comet survivors has been found.This image is made up of data from Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. Blue shows infrared light of 3.6 to 4.5 microns; green shows infrared light of 5.8 to 8 microns; and red shows infrared light of 24 microns.

(sorce: NASA & full resolution here)

eclipse

Credit: Mir 27 Crew; Copyright: CNES

Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moved across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station. The two bright spots that appear on the upper left are possibly Jupiter and Saturn, although this has yet to be proven. Mir was deorbited in a controlled re-entry in 2001.

(from: Astronomy picture of the day)