‘Space Craft Nudges’ - What and Why ?

Satellites orbiting the Earth must occasionally be nudged to stay on the correct path. These spacecraft maneuvers are called ‘Nudges‘

Nudges - How important !

For these space craft maneuvres, fuel is needed. If all fuel is lost, the satellite loses its track slowly and thus breaks off from its intended orbit and wobbles into space or falls into the oceans. Thus, Nudging and fuel needed for this maneuver determines the life of a satellite. As we know, spacecraft fuel is costly and we can’t really afford to fill in more fuel which will increase the payload mass and other complications. Thus, MIT scientists are developing a new rocket that could make this and other spacecraft maneuvers much less costly, a consideration of growing importance as more private companies start working in space. Read the rest of this entry »

Nasa’s first dedicated mission to measure carbon dioxide from space has failed following a rocket malfunction. The OCO - Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission was intended to help pinpoint the key locations on our planet’s surface where the gas is being emitted and absorbed.

Officials said the fairing - the part of the rocket which covers the satellite on top of the rocket - had failed to separate properly.If the finding is confirmed, the mission will be lost.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Allen Telescope Array

Have you ever wondered looking up above the night sky with an alluding question on your mind - “Are we alone?” - If yes, go ahead and read this!

Human race is long bedazzled with this very question - Are we Alone in this Universe? Is there a possibility of alien civilizations existing somewhere in some corner of this immensely endless Universe? ‘SETI’ is the scientific organization which vows to find an answer.

SETI stands for ‘Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence’.

It is only one of its kind of a scientific community which always looks upwards into the sky with the World’s most powerful array of Radio Telescopes, listening to every speck of Radio signal collected from the vast outfield - the Universe! With the tumultuous amount of data at hand and less funds, SETI was unable to handle everything in its own Supercomputers. So they developed an innovative idea of Network Computing where in an application can be run by anyone who’s got a computer with an Internet connection.

Any space enthusiast in SETI’s activities can join Team SETI to donate some portion of his PC’s time for analyzing and decoding these massive data from the outer space. This project called ‘SETI @ Home’ was launched in the past decade and received tremendous response from SETI enthusiasts all over the world! Every week the maximum decoder was felicitated on the SETI home page. If u thought you’ll monetize this work - I’m sorry this is a charity/ hobby to be taken up - You wouldn’t get paid for. Though a private non-profit organization thirsty for funds, SETI has ample reputation to get fund support from NASA and corporate around the world.

So, if you thought I am going to answer the question - Sorry ! I really don’t have an answer! But, you can very well join team SETI here - SETI Home and contribute some pennies from your pocket to them to find an answer for the same ! What I have actually done is just being a sign-board to find the answer ! Now how’s that?

Watch Video:

Feb 16, 2009

Ahh.. less than a week after the dreadful and nasty collision of the US and the Russian satellites, here comes another alarming news - two Nuclear submarines have collided in the North Atlantic. The British Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard and the French navy’s submarine Le Triomphant are the ones that have met with this dastardly accident.

The accident is said to have occurred in the first week of this month itself (Feb 3rd) but it came into limelight just days before.

The British Royal Navy boasts of its Vanguard class submarines being equipped with a State-of-the-art Sonar technology and a dedicated Collision Avoidance Radar to prevent any proximity collisions.
What is more disgusting is that both these submarines are nuclear powered engines, from the Uranium fueled pressurised water reactors. The culminating fact is that both were carrying Nuclear warheads at the time of this collision. This has sparked a lot of controversy among the Defense ministries of UK and France, which have not officially uttered anything about the incident.

“A much bigger disaster was on the cards, though we’ve been bit more lucky in both these incidents.”

What is the plight of this incident ?

Both the submarines are 150 metre plus in size carrying a crew of 250 plus in total. Though no casualities are reported, it is highly plausible that a nuclear detonation cum disaster could have had happened. Both the incidents - the last week’s Satellite collision and this week’s Submarine collision - have thrown up a lot of questions against the verity of safety and security practices of environment and the international codes of conduct being ensured in the scientific world.

A much bigger disaster was on the cards, though we’ve been bit more lucky in both these incidents. How  are we going to ensure that innocent people and the enviroment will not become victims for the dreadful and selfish plight of the military activities of the world nations ? I guess it is high time that the International Community should enforce stricter laws when it comes to the space and the environment.The WEuropean Union has already called for International codes of conduct for nations that have theeir property in the space.

In one hand we are high on praise with regard to the scientific proliferations and technologies that deliver so much good to humans, but on the other, it poses more danger to the innocent common man. The scientific community and the military of world nations should understand that without this world, there is nothing they can achieve or conquer !

Watch Video:

Feb 11th, 2009:

The inevitable happened at last, after the decade old warnings of Space experts came true when two communication satellites, one of Russian ( Cosmos 2251 ) and American ( Iridium 33 ) collided over Siberia in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at about 800 kms high.

The collision has spawn a lot of debris into space, thus posing threat to The International Space Station (ISS). Also, swarms of whirling debris might also eventually pose a threat to other satellites in an orbital chain reaction. This event has highlighted the need for safe disposal and rigorous monitoring for tracking Satellite orbits very accurately.

The Russian Cosmos satellite launched in 1983 is said to be non-functional and out of service during the time of collision, as per the reports from the Russian Space Agency, ROSCOSMOS.

“This is a first, unfortunately,” Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said of the collision.

The U.S. satellite was part of the Iridium global mobile communications system and is owned by a consortium headed by Motorola, the space agency said. It was launched in 1997.

Watch Video:

The EU response:

The European Union has responded two days later, expressing the need for an immediate action to set up an Interanational code of conduct for all countries that have properties (satellites) in space. The main objective of the code is to strengthen the safety, security and predictability of all space activities, civil or military, said the Czech ambassador Ivan Pinte, whose country currently holds the EU presidency.

News Report links:

• BBC report

• CNN Report

• Xinhuanet Report

• Space.com Report

• More News

Hey guys,

Its a popular myth  that geeks score poor on romantic quotient (really !? ); Well let me break it ( I’l tel you a secret: I am called a Romantic guy by many .. So here is an interesting piece of information about Valentine’s day celebration in Japan.

Valentine's Day !

Unlike the rest of the world, Japanese celebrate Valentine’s day in rather a unique fashion and an attractive manner.
Japanese working ladies buy lots of chocolates for their bosses and male colleagues and close friends and of course, their special ones too. But the chocolates they offer are different -
“Giri Choco” is the obligatory chocolate given to colleagues and others which has no romantic connection; “Honmei Choco” is the special chocolate given to the man they are serious about.
Japanese woman buy 20 to 30 boxes of Giri Chocolate and expensive boxes of Honmei chocolate.  Many others make the special Honmei chocolates by themselves.

That’s not all ! This day is more special like a tradition for Japanese school girls, where in they express their feelings to their Honmei-person ! ( the boy on whom they have a crush) On March 14th, Men give back slightly more expensive chocolates or gifts to those women who gave him chocolates exactly a month ago, on Valentine’s day. This day, on March 14th is called as “White Day“, which again is celebrated big in Japan ! This is more of a thanks giving day in return to the Valentine’s day ! Japanese Confectioners, traders sell 25% of the total chocolates sold in a year !

After the humongous success of Google Earth, Google Mars and the Google Moon, it’s show time for Google to “really dive” into the oceans and claim every space under the sun, well atleast in the literal sense ! Google Ocean has been launched as an add on to Google earth version 5.0 so now we can dive into the depths of the dark oceans and discover things for ourself. Explore the deepest point of all - the Challenger deep in Mariana Trench, or try to find footage of ship wrecks, or even find the global fishing statistics - now its all under your thumb ! Go, download Google Earth 5.0 right here and enjoy scuba diving !

hello friendz,
Space boy has donned this brand new look for his endeavour into the world of information super highway. Constantly evolving, to get pace with the web 2.0 thing, now that’s hot n happenin’ - Space Boy has been under the covers for a while before his grand entry …Hope you like this revamped and beefed up site design. Please feel free to give ur suggestions and ideas by commenting in Guest book Page.. Many thanks in advance ..

Moon, our fellow wanderer of the night sky, has some strikingly interesting facts and SpaceBoy brings you those “luna”tic info right on your desktop!

>> Indian astronomers of the vedic period as early as 1500 B.C determined the orbit of the Moon precisely based on the phases of the Moon and developed the lunar calendar.

>> Hipparchus, an ancient Greek Astronomer, using only his observations and mathematical formulae measured the distance to the Moon as well as the Sun with surprising accuracies.

>> The mean density of Moon is just 3.35 g/cc whereas that of our Earth is 5.52 g/cc.

>> Moon does not have a substantial molten core like earth and hence no magnetic field.

>> Moon exhibits extremes of temperature. During the daytime mercury soars up to +110 degrees Celcius where as the nights are notoriously cold reaching -180 degrees Celcius.

>> The terrain is basically classified into

1. Highlands : rugged ; very ancient.
2. Maria : smooth ; younger lowlands.

>> The mountains or highlands in Earth are formed by the crustal deformation or the so called “Plate Tectonics” which is absent in our neighboring wanderer.

>> Maria ( Latin for “Seas” ) are relatively flat areas produced by massive lava flow during earlier Lunar Volcanism, comprising about 16 % of the lunar surface. [Click here to view enlarged image]

>> Maria is associated with gravity anomalies also called as “ Masons ” ( Mass Concentrations )

>> A spacecraft would accelerate as it nears the Maria region and decelerate as it moves away due to Masons.

>> Lunar surface is covered with a gently rolling layer of powdery soil and rock fragments called ‘Regolith’

>> Regolith – is a powdery formation as a result of the debris created by the meteor impacts which cause craters. [Click here to view enlarged image]

>> The juiciest information is: there’s a relative abundance of Helium - 3 isotope (a fusion element) on the moon, compared to earth.

>> This may be due to the fact that over a 4 billion year history of moon tons of He-3 from the solar wind have impacted directly onto  the surface of the moon and got trapped in minerals like Ilemenite [ a compound of Iron and titanium oxide : FeTiO3 ]. Though He-3 has high diffusivity and escapes from the lunar soil, Ilemenite has a very high retentivity for the same. [Click here to view enlarged image]

>> The lunar surface where Neil Armstrong set his foot is called – “ The Sea of Tranquility ”

>> Selenography – is the study of the physical features of the Moon.

Hope you enjoyed this nutty compilation of fragments of information about our lovely friend of the night sky !