Astronaut sues over use of his image in NASA photo
An astronaut has sued a musician for using a NASA photo with his image in it on an album cover.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Playing catch with a cat
An evening pause: This Persian kitten rules.
The view from Opportunity, September 16, 2010
The view from Opportunity, September 16, 2010. Near the rover you can see the bedrock periodically exposed under windblown sand. The rock sitting on the sand in the distance is thought to be a meteorite, to which Opportunity is heading for a closer look. In the distance can be seen the rim of Endurance Crater, the rover’s eventual destination.
New standards on car mpg
What does this have to do with engineering? Under a plan released by the Obama adminstration today, automakers will be required to magically achieve substantially higher fuel efficiency — between 47 and 62 miles per gallon — by 2025.
Layoffs in Houston
The layoffs in the American government space program continue. The United Space Alliance, the space shuttle’s primary contractor, today laid off 333 workers in Houston.
Images of asteroid by Rosetta
The European Space Agency has released some new data, including images and animations, of the asteroid Lutetia, which the spacecraft Rosetta flew past on July 10, 2010.
More layoffs in Florida
With the end of the shuttle program looming, about 1100 shuttle workers will be laid off in Florida today.
China launches 2nd Moon mission
China has launched its second unmanned lunar probe, designed to photograph the Moon from an orbit altitude of 9 miles.
The state of the Sun, September 30, 2010
Time to update the state of the Sun, as seen by satellite data (the last update was in July). The graph below, posted today by Physikalisch- Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD), shows the variation in the Sun’s Total Solar Irradiance since 1978. I have added a blue horizontal line to show that even now, two years after the Sun reached the lowest point in its most recent solar minimum, it has still not brightened enough to equal the lowest point in the two previous minimums. (Note that if we included the minimum from 1976, the Sun would still be below that as well.)
Once again, the evidence is building that the Sun might be heading towards the weakest maximum seen to two centuries. And when that happened, things got very cold on Earth.
Dancing robots
An evening pause: How about some dancing robots?
New York forced to replace 250,000 street signs by the federal government
We’re here to help you! New York City is being forced by the federal government to replace 250,000 perfectly good street signs, at a cost of $27.5 million.
ATK to lay off 426 employees today
ATK lays off 426 employees today.