Category Archives: Space Station

Know about Foam and Foam Board Insulation Know about Foam and Foam Board Insulation

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A variety of materials like glass, foam, cellulose, aluminum foil etc are used for insulation purposes. But one of the more favored insulation materials is foam. Despite the fact that foam insulation products are costlier than other types of insulating materials, it is widely used.
Higher price may however be deemed justifiable as R-values of the foam insulations range from R-4 to R-8 per inch of thickness. This is roughly three times more than most other insulating materials of similar thickness. It is also seen that if properly installed, foam insulation is a lot more effective than the rest.

When it comes to foam insulation there can be three options – molded expanded Polystyrene (MEPS)/ extruded expanded Polystyrene (XEPS) or Polyurethane or Polyisocyanurate. Any of these should provide you with very effective insulation. Foam insulation can be done as a liquid or using factory made foam boards.
Liquid foam insulation is done either by applying from small spray containers as a liquid or by means of a pressure sprayed product for heavy duty applications.  Both types expand and solidify as the chemical mixture cures. Both spray foam and foam boards are equally versatile and can be used to insulate roofs, walls, foundations, entry and overhead garage doors, pipes and tanks, under basement slabs, or over a slab-on-grade floor.
Be it any type of foam insulation, you must take care to protect it from direct sunlight as the sun’s ultraviolet rays have the potential to damage them. For roofs, it’s preferable to apply a coating of tar/ acrylic/ silicone/ rubberized paint. Or else, you can also cover the foam with a rubber or plastic membrane or a layer of asphalt and roofing felt.
Foam board insulation is very effective in preventing the oppressive summer heat from penetrating into your home. It also would help you conserve energy and save on your utility bills. Foam board insulation is a rigid foam sheet, usually four by eight feet (1.2 by 2.4 m) in size, used in nearly all aspects of building construction to provide thermal resistance in floors, ceilings and walls.
Polyurethane and Polyisocyanurate foam board are very similar in content. Foam board insulation is usually placed between the exterior finish and the studs of exterior walls. To prevent air infiltration, it is necessary to place rigid insulation boards tightly together and seal the seams with tape or caulk.  Polystyrene foam board insulation is done in much the same way as Polyurethane and Polyisocyanurate foam boards, except for the differences in expansion.
Please bear in mind that foam board insulation is susceptible to deterioration through exposure to sun. Though foam insulation offers no food value to insects, still insects can bore holes into it. Therefore it will be necessary for you to take appropriate precautionary measures to protect your insulation from sun and insect damage.
Foam insulation is not easily combustible but if ignited, it burns and emits dense, black, smoke containing pernicious toxic gases. Because of these inherent perils, foams used for construction will require a covering as a fire barrier.
A lot of precaution is necessary to install foam insulation. You may have to use a mask helmet and gloves. It is even advisable to cover your whole body as foam is hyper allergen and it could lead to dermatological problems.  It is wiser that you hire an experienced professional to do the job as the health risk is quite high.
Source: In Order to know about the Foam Insulation Visit our website

15% off at Tuscan Hills Villa, Free spa/pool heating

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A Traveler’s delight would be to vacation or voyage to one of the world’s most popular tourist spot, maybe Florida, Hawaii, California etc. What would even delight them more is to get a luxurious accommodation at discounted rates and now they all get this great opportunity to book this amazing villa called Pretty Mediterranean Style Villa at Tuscan Hills.
This is a 3 bedroom 2 restroom villa which can accommodate 6 persons. One of the major advantages this villa gives you is to save travel time as the major attractions in Florida like Disney word, SeaWorld and Universal Studios are just 15-35 mins away.
The villa also gives you a lot of luxuries like swimming pool, spa, games room etc. There will be free spa/pool heating for renters visiting between 1st October and 31st March. You can get 15% discount if booked with 8 weeks of arrival date.
Enjoy vacations booking this villa at discounted rates. Find worldwide vacation rentals for any vacation to any place in the world.

Mexico Vacation Rental: Stay for 7 nights Pay for 6

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Location: Puerto Vallarta, VILLA PARAISO
No of bedrooms:  6
No of restrooms: 6.5
Sqfeet:                 13000
No of persons:     14
Unarguably this is one of the paradise villas, as you will have 12 staffs pampering you to the core. You can enjoy the ocean view watching the delightful dolphins or venture deeper with your scuba gear. It boasts of a lot of facilities be it the surround system, the alarm system, swimming pool or its disable friendly features.
All these luxuries and more come to you for a rate of $1638 from April-Dec 15 during the low season and soars up to 2587 afterwards. You can make availability of the discount by booking for 6 nights and getting 10% off or book for 7 nights and get one day free. 
The villa may seem a touché expensive but it’s worth its weight in gold. It’s truly one of the paradises on earth.
Book Mexico vacation rentals or any other vacation rental around the globe with exciting offers/discounts and enjoy your vacations.

Solar power vents attics benefits

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Solar powered attic vents  can be used to control heat and moisture. Today there are alternatives to roof louvers that are smart and effective. The solar varieties work of the principle of solar energy. These collect the energy from the rays of the sun during your day when your attic is at its warmest. Using this energy, it generates electricity. This electricity is used to operate an extremely high energy efficient motor that is placed inside the power vent. So what does this mean to you? You are generating free electricity and getting free power! You are not only reducing the total usage of electricity in your house but you are also using a source of energy that is renewable and works without leaving waste.
                                                               

There are many types. The roof mounted is one of them. This has a durable high quality two piece construction. This utilizes a solar panel that will collect the rays from the sun and convert it into electricity. This unit will      be used to operate a 24 volt DC motor that is housed in the inside of the power vent. These units are rust resistant and a have a steel dome that is galvanized. These are pretty low profile too. The solar panels are usually located in a separated location from the dome or the roof. There is no separate electrical outlet or installation that is required. Also this will work from sunrise to sunset without costing you any money.


                                                               
The next type is the gable mounted type. This type is used in conjunction with the solar gable attic fans.               The best part about these solar vents & spray foam insulation is that the installation of them is really simple. There is no electrical hookup required. This will save you all the trouble from finding a low priced electrician because there are no complicated wirings that you would have to deal with.  All that you need to do is secure the solar panel and the fan. After they are secure, all that is required is the connection of a simple plug from one to another. These systems can be conveniently mounted on your home’s gable and hidden behind a decorative shutter. Also the solar panel will come with brackets. You can use these brackets to mount it on the roof easily.    The solar panels will absorb the incoming rays of the sun and convert it into electricity.
                                                               


The main advantage of using solar vents is that you can save tons on the electricity that you would otherwise use on cooling or heating your home. You are not only conserving energy but also you are making use of a renewable source of energy that does not leave any waste behind. Also these will help to prevent moisture damage to your attic. Normally moisture would enter your attic through daily activities like laundry cooking or bathing. This moisture would get into your attic and cause damage. Using such a setup would prevent such damage by preventing them moisture to accumulate in the first place.
Source: To know more details About Attic Ventilation For commercial Buildings &
spray foam insulation   visit  http://www.aaffordableinsulators.com/spray-foam.php

Space Observatory Provides Clues to Creation of Earth’s Oceans

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Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth’s surface ended up covered in water.
New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth’s oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.
“Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth,” said Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, published online today, Oct. 5. “This finding substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper Belt.”
Scientists theorize Earth started out hot and dry, so that water critical for life must have been delivered millions of years later by asteroid and comet impacts. Until now, none of the comets previously studied contained water like Earth’s. However, Herschel’s observations of Hartley 2, the first in-depth look at water in a comet from the Kuiper Belt, paint a different picture.
Herschel peered into the comet’s coma, or thin, gaseous atmosphere. The coma develops as frozen materials inside a comet vaporize while on approach to the sun. This glowing envelope surrounds the comet’s “icy dirtball”-like core and streams behind the object in a characteristic tail.
Herschel detected the signature of vaporized water in this coma and, to the surprise of the scientists, Hartley 2 possessed half as much “heavy water” as other comets analyzed to date. In heavy water, one of the two normal hydrogen atoms has been replaced by the heavy hydrogen isotope known as deuterium. The ratio between heavy water and light, or regular, water in Hartley 2 is the same as the water on Earth’s surface. The amount of heavy water in a comet is related to the environment where the comet formed.
By tracking the path of Hartley 2 as it swoops into Earth’s neighborhood in the inner solar system every six-and-a-`half years, astronomers know that it comes from the Kuiper Belt. The five comets besides Hartley 2 whose heavy-water-to-regular-water ratios have been obtained all come from an even more distant region in the solar system called the Oort Cloud. This swarm of bodies, 10,000 times farther afield than the Kuiper Belt, is the wellspring for most documented comets.
Given the higher ratios of heavy water seen in Oort Cloud comets compared to Earth’s oceans, astronomers had concluded that the contribution by comets to Earth’s total water volume stood at approximately 10 percent. Asteroids, which are found mostly in a band between Mars and Jupiter but occasionally stray into Earth’s vicinity, looked like the major depositors. The new results, however, point to Kuiper Belt comets having performed a previously underappreciated service in bearing water to Earth.
How these objects ever came to possess the telltale oceanic water is puzzling. Astronomers had expected Kuiper Belt comets to have even more heavy water than Oort Cloud comets because the latter are thought to have formed closer to the sun than those in the Kuiper Belt. Therefore, Oort Cloud bodies should have had less frozen heavy water locked in them prior to their ejection to the fringes as the solar system evolved.
“Our study indicates that our understanding of the distribution of the lightest elements and their isotopes, as well as the dynamics of the early solar system, is incomplete,” said co-author Geoffrey Blake, professor of planetary science and chemistry at Caltech. “In the early solar system, comets and asteroids must have been moving all over the place, and it appears that some of them crash-landed on our planet and made our oceans.”
Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes. NASA’s Herschel Project Office is based at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel’s three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For More information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/news/herschel20111005.html

Save electricity bills by using radiant barriers

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 Householders own multitude of choices for enhancement that may bump up the value of their home even as improving its comfort.           
Are you a home owner and thinking to improve your house completely either by repainting a room or have you thought about projects which could add aesthetic value?
Reduce your house’s heat with the help of radiant barrier as it is easy to use, safe to handle and effectual at plummeting heat loss and it can also turn back the extreme rays of the sun during the summer time and keeping the house cooler too.
Radiant barrier is a comparatively latest item for consumption that consumers are gradually becoming aware of. It has a reflective opus placed in your attic that reflects heat before it enters your home. Just by applying a coat of paint under the decking surface heat could be transferred and it also seals up the cracks and crevices in the wall. 

Radiant barriers are materials installed in buildings to condense summer heat gain and winter heat loss, also to cut building heating and cooling energy usage.    
The main advantage of attic radiant barrier is that it helps in reducing air-conditioning cooling in warm or hot climates. Radiant barriers generally consist of a slight sheet or veneer of an extremely reflective material, typically aluminum applied to one or double sides of a number of substrate supplies. These substrates consist of Kraft paper, plastic films, cardboard, plywood sheathing, and air infiltration barrier material.
                                  
It is expected that a radiant barrier have the potential to slab 97% of the radiant heat immersed through a roof’s surface; this can result in a 30-degree cutback in attic or creep space temperature.


Spray foam insulation: It is a general and an essential thing that we insulate our homes to condense speed of heat loss. The insulation is carried by using spray foam in the opening, chink and the crevice such that there is no amend of heat linking the walls of the house and the environment.
 Some of the Benefits of Spray Foam Insulation Include:
Reduction in sound diffusion, better environment, Keep Pests Outdoors, reduction in noise levels, Reduction in moisture and the development of Mold, apart from this it also has certain benefits like generating improved environment by plummeting dust, dirt, and pollen, Saving Energy structuring effectiveness & a Green Environment, produces air tight thermal seal, stops air and dampness penetration, Makes your home more comfortable, trim down capacity requirements, maintenance and wear of HVAC equipment.
 
Attic ventilation keeps the loft cooler in the summer and dry in the winter. Attic ventilation keeps the loft cooler in the summer and dry in the winter. Good exposure to air boosts the act of your insulation, expands the life of your HVAC unit and saves you even more money on energy bills.
Benefits of attic ventilation: it extends the life of your roof, cut downs the load on your HVAC system, stops ice damming in colder regions, and diminishes moisture build-up in the loft.
Source : Know More Details About Radiant Barrier by Visiting
http://www.aaffordableinsulators.com/ 

 

 

A Read up About Attic insulation

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When we are considering attic insulation, there are several factors that we should keep in mind. There are two main types of blow in attic insulation. These two are most commonly used. They are cellulose and fiberglass insulation. Also there is the blow in rock wool insulation but the use of it is not so common.
Cellulose, which is most commonly used, is a natural product of wood. It is primarily made out of natural newspaper. To meet the smoke development and flame spread requirements of today’s building codes; a fire retardant chemical is added to the cellulose. 
The fiberglass insulation material that is used is the same material that batts or roles of the fiberglass insulation except for the fact that it is chopped or cubed so that it can be easily installed with the help of the insulating blowing machine. The fiber glass insulation will typically consist of 20% to 30% of recycled glass.
                                              

The r value of the cellulose that is used is R-3.2 to 3.8 per square inch. The loose filled fiberglass will have an R-value of R-2.2 to 2.7 per inch cube. To achieve the desired R value, you will have to depend on both the depth of the insulation as well as the density.
There are varying R values for ceiling insulation based upon the energy codes as well the climate of your locality.  Based on the type of attic that you have, the code requirements may also vary. For example for joist assembled roof assemblies as well as for attics with single rafter may vary. There is a typically a chart on the insulation bag that will have the accurate depths for the various R values.

                                                 
There are depth markers that are required to be placed in attic space which the WSEC requires to help the inspector and the installer verify the depth of the insulation. These depth markers should be placed within every three hundred square feet of the attic area and these must face towards the attic.
                                                 

The depth of the insulation is very important; however, checking the density of the insulation is also equally important.  The blow in insulation type can be fluffed up after it is installed. This is done so that it meets the required depth without actually meeting the required R value. This will settle over time so that the desired R value is achieved as the R value is lowered after it settles down.
The attic card is the easiest way to document the amount of R value installation. These are usually found stapled near the attic access to the truss. This card will also have information that is cited by the federal trade commission. Sometimes a chart is also attached with this.
Source: If you’re Still Unclear about Attic Insulation Visit Our Website www.aaffordableinsulators.com

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars

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The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth.
Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.
“This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life,” Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. “Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now.”
A research team led by Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the “habitable zone,” the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet.
Scientists detected the new planet in the Kepler-16 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other from our vantage point on Earth. When the smaller star partially blocks the larger star, a primary eclipse occurs, and a secondary eclipse occurs when the smaller star is occulted, or completely blocked, by the larger star.
Astronomers further observed that the brightness of the system dipped even when the stars were not eclipsing one another, hinting at a third body. The additional dimming in brightness events, called the tertiary and quaternary eclipses, reappeared at irregular intervals of time, indicating the stars were in different positions in their orbit each time the third body passed. This showed the third body was circling, not just one, but both stars, in a wide circumbinary orbit.
The gravitational tug on the stars, measured by changes in their eclipse times, was a good indicator of the mass of the third body. Only a very slight gravitational pull was detected, one that only could be caused by a small mass. The findings are described in a new study published Friday, Sept. 16, in the journal Science.
“Most of what we know about the sizes of stars comes from such eclipsing binary systems, and most of what we know about the size of planets comes from transits,” said Doyle, who also is the lead author and a Kepler participating scientist. “Kepler-16 combines the best of both worlds, with stellar eclipses and planetary transits in one system.”
This discovery confirms that Kepler-16b is an inhospitable, cold world about the size of Saturn and thought to be made up of about half rock and half gas. The parent stars are smaller than our sun. One is 69 percent the mass of the sun and the other only 20 percent. Kepler-16b orbits around both stars every 229 days, similar to Venus’ 225-day orbit, but lies outside the system’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface, because the stars are cooler than our sun.
“Working in film, we often are tasked with creating something never before seen,” said visual effects supervisor John Knoll of Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., in San Francisco. “However, more often than not, scientific discoveries prove to be more spectacular than anything we dare imagine. There is no doubt these discoveries influence and inspire storytellers. Their very existence serves as cause to dream bigger and open our minds to new possibilities beyond what we think we ‘know.’”

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/images/Kepler-16_transit-art.html

Houston Home Insulations- A Solution to Beat the Houston Heat

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The sun shining bright at the beaches can be enjoyed having a glass of lemonade, relaxing ourselves in the sun tanning our skin. The same relentless heat cannot be enjoyed when you are at home as it’s going to cause you a lot of frustration as you just feel so tiring and the heat only adds to your frustration. You will prefer to set the air conditioner to the lowest temperature possible in order to escape the heat, but once you step out of the room you feel your home is like a furnace.
One useful solution i.e. possible is to plant a lot of trees, but that’s not going to happen as whether we plant trees or not, we are cutting them to build our homes. So instead of thinking in the way of nature we have to think in the way of manmade technology. The technical solution to protect our homes from heat can be insulation.
Houston is one of the cities in the United States where one must brave the heat during summers; it can get as hot as 84.5 °F. So in order to make one’s home cozy one needs to consider insulation as an option and at a place like Houston it’s absolutely necessary.
If you are living at Houston and would like to do home insulation, you must consider the options of home insulation available. Attic insulation is considered a basic and effective type of insulation which can make your home feel comfortable and also save energy. Radiant barrier foil can be considered as an option too as it effectively blocks the sunlight away from the attic and an effective way of reducing the energy bills. Spray foam insulation is one method that is been getting popular in recent times.
Based on the design and construction of your home, you need to decide upon an insulation method. Before that you need to follow some basic guidelines like using a thermal detector to find the leaky spots. You might think that having a lot of leaky spots will be of help as a lot of air escapes and you can feel cool but the fact is if you are using your air conditioner to beat the Houston heat, you will never get your home cooled with so many leaky spots. In addition to this, you will find that your energy bill too increases.
Also there are other little details like checking the spots where your piping line enters, internet cable, other connections and also the switch boards. These places would constitute a considerable number of heat losses and having foam insulation done on these places will be a good option. Think about having window curtains which you just close at night to stop the cold air and open in the morning to get the warm breeze.
Insulation is only a part of making the home a cozy place, it is an effective way to beat the heat, but after insulation think of changing the setup of your house to make it feel more cool and comfortable.

Expedition 28 Crew Lands Safely

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Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Ron Garan landed their Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft in Kazakhstan a few seconds before midnight EDT Friday, with an official landing time of 11:59:39 p.m. Thursday. Russian recovery teams were on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and adjust to gravity after 164 days in space.
The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in April and spent 162 days living and working aboard the International Space Station.
Samokutyaev was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 8:38 p.m. Thursday from the Poisk docking port on the station’s Zvezda service module.
The undocking marked the end of Expedition 28 and the start of Expedition 29 under the command of NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, who is scheduled to remain on the station with Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa until November. Borisenko ceremonially handed command of the station over to Fossum on Wednesday. Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft in June.
NASA and its international partners have agreed to a tentative launch schedule with crew flights to the International Space Station resuming on Nov. 14. The Space Station Control Board, with representation from all partner agencies, set the schedule after hearing the Russian Federal Space Agency’s findings on the Aug. 24 loss of the Progress 44 cargo craft. The dates may be adjusted to reflect minor changes in vehicle processing timelines.
According to the current plan, the Soyuz 28 spacecraft, carrying NASA’s Dan Burbank and Russia’s Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov, will launch Nov. 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and arrive at the station on Nov. 16.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition28/exp28_lands.html

Herschel Mission Finds Galactic Growth Slow and Steady

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The Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that galaxies do not always need to collide with each other to drive vigorous star birth. The finding overturns a long-held assumption and paints a more stately picture of how galaxies evolve.
Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important contributions from NASA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“Galaxy mergers play an important role in producing the most powerful starbursts today,” said Lee Armus, a co-author of the new study from NASA’s Herschel Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “But in the early universe, when most galaxies contained a lot more gas, mergers were not the only way, or even the most common way, to make lots of stars at a rapid rate.”
The new results are based on Herschel’s observations of two patches of sky, each about one-third the size of the full moon.
It’s like looking through a keyhole across the universe. Herschel has seen more than a thousand galaxies at a variety of distances from Earth, spanning 80 percent of the age of the cosmos.
These observations are unique because Herschel can obtain data at a wide range of infrared light and reveal a more complete picture of star birth than ever seen before.
The results appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read more at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEM2Y40UDSG_0.html .
Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA’s Herschel Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel’s three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/news/herschel20110913.html

Keeping Rocket Engine Fuel Lines Bubble Free in Space

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You are in space…your spacecraft is tumbling out of control, you need to fire your control rockets, the fuel is sloshing all around the inside of the tank…where is your liquid fuel? Without gravity in the space environment, how do you keep the fuel contained so it can be transported to where it is needed? How do you keep gas bubbles out of the fuel lines?
Being able to use all of the fuel in a spacecraft tank has been an ongoing challenge in spacecraft design for the past 50 years, but great advances on the problem are being made using the International Space Station as a laboratory. In the microgravity of space, the “bottom” of the tank is NOT apparent.
When a spacecraft tank is nearly full, the fuel tends to “cling” to all sides of the tank leaving a small gas bubble, or ullage, near the center of the tank. Once the tank has emptied to the point where there is not enough liquid to cover the walls of the tank, it is not clear where the remaining fluid is “positioned.” Here on Earth this is not an issue. For example, in the gasoline tank in your car, gravity always positions the remaining fluid at the bottom of the tank, allowing the car’s fuel pump to draw the last bit of fuel from the tank.
“Presently, the low risk solution to this problem is to size the fuel tank larger than what is needed for the mission, but this adds extra launch mass and volume to the spacecraft,” states Robert Green at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Another method is to add special channel-like structures, called vanes, inside the tank to purposely “wick” the remaining fuel to the exit. A key area of study is how different shapes of channels work and whether they remove any gas bubbles that can get captured in the flow.
Scientists from Germany and the U.S. have been studying these processes as part of an investigation called Capillary Channel Flow, or CCF. The CCF study looks at several capillary channel geometries that mimic the shape and physical characteristics of vanes in fuel tanks.
One set of capillary channel geometries was developed by Michael E. Dreyer at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, or ZARM, at the University of Bremen in Bremen, Germany, and sponsored by the German Aerospace Center, or DLR. The geometries included parallel plates and square-grooves. This part of the investigation was completed in March 2011, after 78 days of nearly continuous ground-controlled operation.
The second set of channel geometries was designed by Mark M. Weislogel at Portland State University in Portland, Ore. Sponsored by NASA, it will begin operation this month. The geometry is a wedge-shaped channel with only one side exposed to the interior of the tank. Weislogel is studying the fluid behavior in the interior corner where the two plates meet. This area forms a wedge-shaped channel geometry, which forces gas bubbles to rise and burst past the liquid surface. This new shape enables the passive separation of gas from liquid.
Every space system that includes a fluid, from drinking water, to radiators, to toilets, can have problems with transport and bubbles. So using the geometry of the channel to remove bubbles can be a real advantage, as Weislogel explained when discussing the importance of studying the wedge shape. “In a spacecraft tank application, if gas bubbles get to the engine, the engine can sputter or stall. If the fuel lines have these wedge-shaped sections, they can expel the gas en route, and the wedge-shaped section takes care of the separation for you,” said Weislogel.
The CCF investigation was installed in the Microgravity Science Glovebox, or MSG, a research facility aboard the space station. The MSG facility is designed to accommodate small science and technology experiments in a workbench type environment. The experiment can be controlled from NASA’s Glenn Research Center, from Germany, or at Portland State.
“Technologies utilizing capillary flow can be used in applications on Earth,” explained Green. “CCF results may potentially be applied for improving fluid flow in miniaturized biological devices used for health screening and analysis — referred to as lab-on-a-chip.”

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/CCF.html

Space Farm 7 and NASA: A Corn Maze Experience

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Space Farm 7 is a celebration of NASA’s space, science and exploration programs that both honors the agency’s missions and features a contest, the grand prize winner of which will win four tickets to visit the Kennedy Space Center and dine with an astronaut.
Each of the seven participating farms planted corn mazes that feature designs celebrating NASA’s achievements and each of the Space Farms are paired with the closest NASA center in order to highlight that region’s contribution to the agency. The farms are open to the public and feature NASA-related educational games and activities. This outreach project will expose participants to NASA’s space exploration and other missions.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/corn_maze.html

X2.1 Solar Flare and CME

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Sunspot 1283 erupted with another flare yesterday that peaked at 6:20 PM ET. This was an X2.1 class flare, some four times stronger than the earlier flare. Flares can affect Earth’s ionosphere, through which high frequency radio waves travel, and cause radio blackouts. This strength flare can cause a “strong” radio blackout, categorized as R3, which has the potential to cause about an hour-long blackout.
This flare, too, had a coronal mass ejection (CME) – an eruption of a giant cloud of solar material — associated with it. Early models suggest that both CMEs will not travel directly toward Earth, but perhaps just graze our atmosphere in the North, potentially causing auroras in the northern latitudes.
Further updates on the event will be provided as they become available.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News090711-X2.1flare.html

GRAIL Launch Milestones

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NASA’s GRAIL spacecraft are set to launch to the moon aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket on Sept. 8, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. There are two instantaneous (one-second) launch windows at 5:37:06 a.m. and 6:16:12 a.m. PDT (8:37:06 a.m. and 9:16:12 a.m. EDT). The launch period extends through Oct. 19. The launch times occur approximately four minutes earlier each day.
GRAIL’s primary science objectives are to determine the structure of the lunar interior, from crust to core, and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.
The lunar orbiters are nestled inside the top of a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7920H-10C rocket, the most powerful Delta rocket in NASA’s inventory.
On launch day, Sept. 8, NASA TV commentary coverage of the countdown will begin at 3 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. EDT). The coverage will be webcast at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
Live countdown coverage on NASA’s launch blog also begins at 3 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. EDT) at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/launch/grail_blog.html . Coverage features real-time updates of countdown milestones, as well as streaming video clips highlighting launch preparations and liftoff. To access these features, and for more information on GRAIL, visit http://www.nasa.gov/grail and http://grail.nasa.gov .
The launch will also be online, with a live chat available, on Ustream TV, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . To follow the GRAIL launch on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/NASAJPL and http://twitter.com/NASA .
Here is a timeline of expected launch milestones:
Launch
At liftoff, the rocket’s first-stage engine and six of its nine strap-on solid rocket motors will ignite, and the rocket will be airborne, carrying GRAIL up and over the Atlantic Ocean.
First six solid rocket motors are jettisoned
GRAIL’s Delta II is carrying nine strap-on graphite-epoxy motors. The first six will be ignited at the time of liftoff. The remaining three will be ignited shortly after the first six strap-on motors burn out.
Fairing separates
After the Delta’s first stage completes its tour of duty, its second stage, which will provide 9,645 pounds of kick for GRAIL, will begin the first of two scheduled burns.
Shortly after ignition of the rocket’s second stage, the Delta’s 30-foot-long (8.88-meter-long) nose cone, or fairing, will separate and be jettisoned as planned, providing the GRAIL twins with their first taste of exo-atmospheric existence.
Parking at 17,500 miles per hour
The Delta’s second stage will temporarily stop firing, as planned, and the rocket and GRAIL will begin a planned coast phase, also known as a “parking orbit” at about 90 miles (nearly 167 kilometers up).
GRAIL heading from Earth to the moon
The Delta’s second stage will begin a second burn. This approximately four-and-a-half-minute-long burn will place GRAIL on its desired trajectory to the moon.
Spacecraft begin to separate from second stage
The GRAIL-A spacecraft begins its separation process from the Delta’s second stage. The GRAIL-B spacecraft separates about 8 minutes later. At this point, the moon is three-and-a-half months away.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20110907.html

Moderate Labor Day Solar Flare Eruption

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At 9:35 PM ET on September 5, 2011, the sun emitted an Earth-directed M5.3 class flare as measured by the GOES satellite. The flare erupted from a region of the sun that appears close to dead center from Earth’s perspective, an active region designated number 1283. The flare caused a slight increase of solar energetic protons some 26,000 miles above Earth’s surface.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) — another solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space — was associated with this flare. The CME is a relatively slow one, traveling at under 200 miles per second.
Further updates on the event will be provided as they become available.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News090611-m5.3flare.html

NASA Announces Media Telecon About Opportunity Rover

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NASA will host a media teleconference on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 12:30 p.m. PDT (3:30 p.m. EDT) to discuss progress of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Opportunity reached the Martian Endeavour crater earlier this month after years of driving.
The teleconference participants are:
– Dave Lavery, program executive, Mars Exploration Rovers, NASA Headquarters, Washington
– Steve Squyres, principal investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
– Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers, Washington University in St. Louis.
– John Callas, project manager, Mars Exploration Rovers, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. They continued to work for years in bonus mission extensions. Spirit finished communicating in 2010, after six years of operation.
Opportunity, still very active, reached the rim of Endeavour crater on Aug. 9. The arrival gives the rover access to geology different from any it explored during its first 90 months on Mars.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20110830.html

NASA Invites 150 Twitter Followers to Lunar Launch

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NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency’s Twitter accounts to a two-day launch Tweetup Sept. 7-8. The Tweetup is expected to culminate in the launch of the twin moon-bound GRAIL spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The launch is targeted for 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 8. The two GRAIL spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail from crust to core. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about the moon and provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
Tweetup participants were selected from more than 800 people who registered online. They will share their Tweetup experiences with their followers through the social networking site Twitter.
Participants represent the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Spain and the United Kingdom. Attendees from the U.S. come from 32 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Beginning at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, Sept. 7, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when attendees talk with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; Jim Adams, deputy director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington; Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; Sami Asmar, GRAIL deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York. To watch the broadcast, visit: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup . The event will also be streamed live, with a moderated chat, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .
Participants also will tour NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, including a close-up visit to the launch pad.
Reporters interested in interviewing Tweetup attendees should contact Stephanie Schierholz at 202-358-1100 or stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov. Reporters interested in covering the afternoon program Sept. 7 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex must secure access through Andrea Farmer by 2 p.m. PDT (5 p.m. EDT) Sept. 6 at 321-449-4318 or afarmer@dncinc.com.
Previously, NASA invited groups to attend the launch of the Juno spacecraft on its way to Jupiter and five space shuttle launches: Atlantis’ STS-129, STS-132 and STS-135 missions, Discovery’s STS-133 mission and Endeavour’s STS-134 mission.
To follow participants on Twitter as they experience the prelaunch events and GRAIL’s liftoff, follow the #NASATweetup hashtag and the list of attendees at: http://twitter.com/nasatweetup/grail-launch.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20110901.html

Florida- A vacation to go

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If you are the kind of person who enjoys being swept by the cool breeze of wind, while you are dozing off in a chaise longue on the golden sands of a beautiful beach and love to watch the blue sky dipping into the deep blue sea, then traveler you got to visit Florida. Florida is the much famed sunshine state but what makes it the great holiday destination is the fact that it can live up to the hype given by the tourists. Florida has a lot of places that travelers would love to see be it beaches, theme parks, museums and many more places that tourists would die to go for. Each beach in Florida has its own specialty, if you would like to row a boat in the peaceful seas then you got to try Dania beach or crescent beach. For the party animals you have to visit Miami Beach and south beach to experience night life at its heights.  You will be in for good diving adventures when you visit Panama City beach, experience the underwater world of scuba diving, snorkeling etc here.
Don’t spend all your vacation at the beaches alone, there are some great theme parks in Florida like the Disneyworld theme park, it consist of a number of divisions like the magic kingdom, animal kingdom, Epcot and more. Universal is another theme park which has a lot of rides and attractions. There are a number of theme parks which are down the pipeline too, so you will be pleasantly surprised with a new attraction every year. Do visit Florida and enjoy your vacation booking one of the Florida villas or Orlando villas. Book a Florida villa now.

NASA’s Chandra Finds Nearest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes

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Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon.
The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago.
“If this galaxy wasn’t so close, we’d have no chance of separating the two black holes the way we have,” said Pepi Fabbiano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., who led the study that appears in this week’s online issue of the journal Nature. “Since this galaxy was right under our noses by cosmic standards, it makes us wonder how many of these black hole pairs we’ve been missing.”
Previous observations in X-rays and at other wavelengths indicated that a single supermassive black hole existed in the center of NGC 3393. However, a long look by Chandra allowed the researchers to detect and separate the dual black holes. Both black holes are actively growing and emitting X-rays as gas falls towards them and becomes hotter.
When two equal-sized spiral galaxies merge, astronomers think it should result in the formation of a black hole pair and a galaxy with a disrupted appearance and intense star formation. A well-known example is the pair of supermassive black holes in NGC 6240, which is located about 330 million light years from Earth.
However, NGC 3393 is a well-organized spiral galaxy, and its central bulge is dominated by old stars. These are unusual properties for a galaxy containing a pair of black holes. Instead, NGC 3393 may be the first known instance where the merger of a large galaxy and a much smaller one, dubbed a “minor merger” by scientists, has resulted in the formation of a pair of supermassive black holes. In fact, some theories say that minor mergers should be the most common way for black hole pairs to form, but good candidates have been difficult to find because the merged galaxy is expected to look so typical.
“The two galaxies have merged without a trace of the earlier collision, apart from the two black holes,” said co-author Junfeng Wang, also from CfA. “If there was a mismatch in size between the two galaxies it wouldn’t be a surprise for the bigger one to survive unscathed.”
If this was a minor merger, the black hole in the smaller galaxy should have had a smaller mass than the other black hole before their host galaxies started to collide. Good estimates of the masses of both black holes are not yet available to test this idea, although the observations do show that both black holes are more massive than about a million suns. Assuming a minor merger occurred, the black holes should eventually merge after about a billion years.
Both of the supermassive black holes are heavily obscured by dust and gas, which makes them difficult to observe in optical light. Because X-rays are more energetic, they can penetrate this obscuring material. Chandra’s X-ray spectra show clear signatures of a pair of supermassive black holes.
The NGC 3393 discovery has some similarities to a possible pair of supermassive black holes found recently by Julia Comerford of the University of Texas at Austin, also using Chandra data. Two X-ray sources, which may be due to supermassive black holes in a galaxy about two billion light years from Earth, are separated by about 6,500 light years. As in NGC 3393, the host galaxy shows no signs of disturbance or extreme amounts of star formation. However, no structure of any sort, including spiral features, is seen in the galaxy. Also, one of the sources could be explained by a jet, implying only one supermassive black hole is located in the galaxy.
“Collisions and mergers are one of the most important ways for galaxies and black holes to grow,” said co-author Guido Risaliti of CfA and the National Institute for Astrophysics in Florence, Italy. “Finding a black hole pair in a spiral galaxy is an important clue in our quest to learn how this happens.”
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra’s science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/H-11-278.html