About NASA’s space programs

March 9, 2011 Leave a Comment

NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This agency is located in United States of America and is responsible for all kinds of space programs and research in the aerospace and aeronautics field. The mission statement of National Aeronautics and Space Administration is to probe the future and explore space and make new discoveries in the field of aerospace.  NASA has undertaken many events to explore space like the Apollo moon landing mission, Space Shuttle and Skylab Space station. It came into operations on 1st October in the year 1958 after replacing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. NASA has developed an Earth Observing System to understand Earth in a better manner. NASA has been exploring bodies in the Solar system. For this effort it has undertaken mission like Great Observation, New Horizons, Big Bang and many other programs.

NASA shares its researches and data with a number of national and international organizations who seek interest in such information. NASA has undertaken many missions to probe into the heavenly bodies that exist near the surface of Earth. Some of these missions include Mariner program which was designed to investigate the planets like Venus, Mars and Mercury. The pioneer program was another mission which was undertaken to study the planetary bodies and was launched in the year 1978. The Voyager program was another unmanned mission launched by National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the planetary alignments and different planets. It was designed to study the planets Jupiter and Saturn and their orbits.

There were also manned programs launched by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Among these was the Space shuttle program launched in 1970’s and 1980’s. The ASTP program was also launched by NASA known as Apollo Soyuz Test Project which took place in 1975 was the last Apollo flight for United States of America. Space Shuttle program was undertaken in the year 1981 in the month of April.

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Space and Universe

March 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

What is the difference between space and universe? It seems to be a very difficult question to answer and even understand the difference between them. Space is considered to be wider as compared to the universe. There have been many people who have expressed their thoughts on space and universe. The universe is believed to have born with a big bang which is referred to as a dense point. It just cannot be counted as to how old our universe is. The universe has been expanding gradually and this expansion is faster even than the speed of light. The universe has almost doubled in its size and is 100 times bigger now than what is was before. This burst of expansion is called as inflation. After the inflation the universe grew at a slower rate. This led to the expansion in the space. As a matter of fact the universe began to cool and matter was formed.

The universe is filled with a number of objects which are named as photons, electrons, protons, neutrons and anti-electrons. The universe was very hot. This heat resulted in breaking smashed atoms with huge forces. These broken pieces scattered all around the universe. They became dense just like the fog. It took more than three lakh years for the matter to cool down and atoms to form. There was a new form of energy discovered known as dark energy which characterized the universe. The universe began to slow down gradually when the dark energy was discovered. This phenomenon gave birth to the solar system. Then there were stars, galaxies and many other objects discovered in the space.

Space and universe is a very wide and interesting concept to study. There are many heavenly bodies that our universe comprises of. One can go on and on exploring them and learning. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been exploring such bodies and launching new programs.

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Astronomy and the Mayans

March 3, 2011 Leave a Comment

Several ancients civilizations showed advanced knowledge is the stars and constellations but few can match the mastery of the Mayan civilization in this field. The Mayan civilization generated worldwide curiosity recently for their possible prediction of he end of the world in 2012. Even Hollywood could not resist the charm of this culture and churned out a few movies based on this subject. The Mayan calendar is known to be the most accurate, even more precise that the current Gregorian calendar in use globally. The calendar was able to predict events such as eclipses for the next 6000 years with an error quotient of only one day. The Mayan calendar was diving into cycles that lasted 3 million years, with each cycle being subdivided into units of 20, 400, 8000 and 158,000 years.

The calendar was used by the Mayans to make tough calculation to find a day of week for a certain date that could be hundred or thousands of years in the past or future. The concept of zero that was accepted by the world much later was already in use by the Mayans. They also used days of the calendar to make complex and accurate astronomical measurements even though they did not have a decimal system or fractions. After observing the revolution of Venus for a thousand years, the Mayan noted that its year lasted 584 days, close to the 583.92 days calculated by modern astronomical methods. It is difficult to decipher the true extent of Mayan astronomical knowledge as most of their astronomy was interlinked with their religion. The Mayans recorded their history, findings, culture and genealogy in the form of highly complex hieroglyphics are still being decoded today. New discoveries are being made every day about the achievements of this great civilization. For reasons yet unknown, at the peak of their advancement, the great Mayan cities were abandoned sometime around 840 AD and their entire culture mysteriously disappeared.

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The universe comprises all

February 16, 2011 Leave a Comment
The Whirlpool Galaxy (Spiral Galaxy M51, NGC 5...

Image via Wikipedia

The universe is usually described as the entirety of all that subsists comprising all corporeal substance and power, the planets, luminary, galaxies, and the inside of inter galaxy liberty, even though this treatment may be different with the perspective. The expression universe may be used in somewhat unusual relative sanity, indicating such perceptions as the space, the earth, or environment. Annotations of previous phases in the progress of the universe, which can be seen at immense space, advise that the universe has been ruled by the similar corporal rules and continues all over a large amount of its level and account. The contour or geometry of the universe comprises both limited geometry in the apparent universe and worldwide geometry, which we might or might not be capable to determine. Contour can refer to curve and topology.

Additionally and properly, the issue in perform scrutinize which multiple match up to the spatial segment in commoving synchronize of the 4 dimensional liberty instance of the universe. Cosmologists usually effort with a known liberty like piece of liberty instance called the commoving synchronizes. In expressions of surveillance, the segment of liberty instance that can be pragmatic is the rearward glowing conduit. If the apparent universe is slighter than the whole universe, an individual cannot conclude the worldwide arrangement by surveillance. Therefore the structure of the universe cannot be determined only by surveillance it might need a very much high level of technology which is still not developed. A number of scientists are working on the project to evaluate the actual size and shape of the universe.

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