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Post by nyx on Oct 9, 2018 2:43:25 GMT
Same here, be careful Swampy!
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 9, 2018 11:54:54 GMT
Well, Michael has us in his crosshairs. Jim Cantore is supposed to show up about 40 miles West of us. Our county has issued mandatory evacuation orders for coastal and low-lying areas. I might not be posting anything much for the next day or two..... Sending up prayers for you and yours Swamprat, stay safe.
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 9, 2018 12:04:26 GMT
Good morning all,
Washington Post
The Hubble Space Telescope is limping after a mechanical failure
By Sarah Kaplan October 9 at 6:00 AM
Two of NASA’s premier space telescopes, Hubble and Kepler, are currently out of commission — sad, if not entirely surprising, news for astronomers who depend on data from NASA’s aging fleet.
The 28-year-old Hubble went into temporary safe mode on Friday after detecting a mechanical failure with one of its gyroscopes — the spinning instruments that keep the telescope pointed steadily toward its targets.
Meanwhile, Kepler, the powerhouse planet hunter that has detected some 4,000 new planets since it launched in 2009, has been in sleep mode since Sept. 26 to preserve dwindling fuel before its next data dump.
Both telescopes are nearing the ends of storied careers in space.
NASA stopped servicing Hubble in 2009, shortly before ending the shuttle program. Two of the six gyroscopes installed during the 2009 repair mission have already broken down, and the one that recently stopped working had been exhibiting what NASA called “end of life behavior” for about a year. It was no surprise when the slumping device stopped working a few days ago.
But then the backup gyro didn’t kick into action, creating a “very stressful weekend” for staff at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute, deputy mission head Rachel Osten said on Twitter. All astronomy work is on hold while researchers attempt to figure out what is wrong.
If they aren’t able to get the “problematic” device up and running again, Hubble will revert to reduced gyro mode, using only one of its two remaining gyroscopes at a time. This mode would limit where Hubble can point but prolong the overall mission.
“It buys lots of extra observing time,” Osten said, “which the astro[nomy] community wants desperately.”
At one point, NASA had hoped that Hubble would stay in the sky long enough to observe in concert with the James Webb Space Telescope, a gold-plated Goliath built to capture the oldest light in the universe. But repeated budget problems and human failures have delayed the Webb telescope’s launch by more than a decade; it is now not expected to launch until at least 2021. NASA’s current operations contract for Hubble ends that year, though optimists say the spacecraft could last into the 2030s.
Many of NASA’s top space telescopes are more than 10 years old. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, Swift Observatory and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have all exceeded the planned duration of their original missions by at least five years.
The end for Kepler is even nearer. The spacecraft has already operated for more than double the length of its original 3½-year mission — functioning even after the second of four reaction wheels that keep it oriented was lost in 2013. It’s long been expected to run out of propellant sometime this year, but zero gravity makes it hard to measure how much fuel is left in the spacecraft’s tank.
“It’s like trying to decide when to gas up your car. Do you stop now? Or try to make it to the next station?” Kepler system engineer Charlie Sobeck wrote in a blog post this year. “In our case, there is no next station, so we want to stop collecting data while we’re still comfortable that we can aim the spacecraft to bring it back to Earth.”
The recent decision to put the telescope in sleep mode is intended to preserve its remaining fuel until Kepler can make contact with the Deep Space Network, the global system of antennae through which spacecraft communicate with Earth. When Kepler’s allotted DSN time begins Oct. 10, it will switch on and beam back data on more than 30,000 stars and galaxies in the constellation Aquarius collected during its most recent 27-day observing campaign.
There is no guarantee that the spacecraft will be able to transmit the science data.
“The fact that we managed to collect data in light of Kepler’s low fuel pressure is yet another incredible achievement by our engineers,” the mission’s guest observer office tweeted last week. “If successful, it would be an unexpected bonus.”
Once NASA decides to close out the mission, engineers will command the spacecraft to turn off its transmitters — preventing “pollution” of the airwaves. Then the spacecraft will be allowed to drift, alone in the dark.
Its wide, Earth-trailing orbit around the sun means that it will fall farther behind our planet until Earth effectively “laps” it, giving the spacecraft a gravity boost that slings it forward until it nearly catches up with Earth from behind. This graceful gravitational dance may continue indefinitely, with Kepler never coming closer than the moon, until the sun expands into a red giant and engulfs the inner solar system or some other cosmic phenomenon intervenes.
In the meantime, Kepler’s demise doesn’t signal the end of humanity’s planet hunting. The spacecraft’s successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), was launched into orbit around Earth in April and has already sent back its first science images and detected two potential planets.
Like Kepler, TESS is designed to scan the sky in the visible part of the light spectrum, but its specialty is finding planets around bright, nearby stars. Researchers anticipate that it may discover 10,000 worlds during its mission.
“Kepler broke open the field in a rather dramatic way,” TESS principal investigator George Ricker said before the launch in April. “But TESS is opening an entirely new window on the universe.”
www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/09/hubble-space-telescope-is-limping-after-mechanical-failure/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.25c28306e46d
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 9, 2018 12:09:54 GMT
liemee watcher Published on Oct 8, 2018
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Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 10, 2018 11:32:42 GMT
Good morning lovely UFOCasebookers!
Stay safe Swamprat. Sending up prayers for all in the path of Michael.
Houston Chronicle
NASA's Johnson Space Center will open its doors to the public later this month, providing behind-the-scenes access to space fanatics.
The free event is being held Oct. 27 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NASA and the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station.
During the open house, guests will hear from officials with programs such as space station, Orion and commercial crew. They'll also be able to check out some moon rocks collected during the Apollo missions as well as explore full-size mock ups of Orion and the space station.
And if you think you've seen it all on the Space Center Houston tours, you'd be wrong. Several locations will be open to the public Oct. 27 that are not available during the museum tours.
This is the first time in years that Johnson has been open to the public, according to NASA.
"As we celebrate NASA's 60th anniversary, Johnson Space Center has played a key role in leading human space exploration and has been a part of the vibrant Houston community for nearly six decades," said Mark Geyer, Johnson director. "While the past 60 years represent the best of our country and the height of American ingenuity, the talented, dedicated and diverse team here in 'space city' Houston is excited about the next chapter in spaceflight as we work to launch humans farther into the solar system."
The event will last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 27, but the last visitors will be admitted at 1:30 p.m.
For more information about where to park and what you'll be able to see on your trip, visit NASA's website here: www.nasa.gov/feature/johnson-space-center-open-house
www.chron.com/news/nation-world/space/article/Get-free-behind-the-scenes-look-at-NASA-s-13293857.php
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 10, 2018 11:47:40 GMT
TexasUFOs Published on Oct 9, 2018
A strange video and testimony showing an object descending (or crashing) over Ohio has been uploaded to MUFON. What do you think of this recent UFO sighting? Was it related to Elon Musk's SpaceX Rocket launch that occurred on the other side of the US (in California) the same night? Could it be a large meteor?
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Crystal
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2018 18:44:38 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Oct 10, 2018 21:20:07 GMT
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 10, 2018 21:26:58 GMT
Thanks for the post Swamprat,
Please keep us posted on how you and yours are doing.
Crystal
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Post by swamprat on Oct 11, 2018 0:18:47 GMT
I talked to our neighbor. Everyone in our area is without power. Power lines are down in several places on our road alone, not to mention the rest of the county. We could be out for a week or more. They said our house looks fine, no damage. We'll probably try to go back tomorrow.
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 11, 2018 0:21:13 GMT
I talked to our neighbor. Everyone in our area is without power. Power lines are down in several places on our road alone, not to mention the rest of the county. We could be out for a week or more. They said our house looks fine, no damage. We'll probably try to go back tomorrow. 🙏 Thanks for the update Swamprat. Crystal
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Post by ZETAR on Oct 11, 2018 3:36:30 GMT
I talked to our neighbor. Everyone in our area is without power. Power lines are down in several places on our road alone, not to mention the rest of the county. We could be out for a week or more. They said our house looks fine, no damage. We'll probably try to go back tomorrow. 🙏 Thanks for the update Swamprat. Crystal INDEED...STAY SAFE BROTHA!
SHALOM...Z
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 11, 2018 11:19:21 GMT
Good morning lovely people,
Defense One
Defense Intel Chief Worried About Chinese ‘Integration of Human and Machines’ By Patrick Tucker
October 10, 2018
The U.S. military’s top intelligence officer is increasingly worried about China’s research into “human performance enhancement,” including efforts to merge human and machine intelligence.
It’s a “key area” of disruptive technology that will affect national security, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, told an audience at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference this week.
Chinese efforts to teach machines to think — through emerging technologies like neural nets, a form of artificial intelligence — represent phases of a process that concludes with “the next step, the integration of human and machines,” Ashley said. This, he said, could result in “cognitive advances not just in how we think, but [also] think about the stamina of the individual soldier; think about the ethical impacts of those kind of technologies and how they would be applied? And how does a democracy view those type of technologies? How will Russia and China leverage those?”
This, he said, would lead to “hard decisions” for the U.S.
The Chinese government is funding academic research into brain-computer interfaces, according to Elsa Kania, a fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (and occasional Defense One contributor). “The PLA [the Chinese military] seeks to integrate and leverage the respective advantages of human and machine intelligence in future military decision-making,” she wrote in an email. “The PLA's Academy of Military Science has focused on advancing military-civil fusion (or civil-military integration, 军民融合) in brain science research, including to explore options to enhance human capabilities for battlefield perception and decision-making.”
That includes everything from implants that enable human “wetware” (brains) to interact with and share digital information with hardware (computers), to gene-editing through tools like CRISPR. Such work may one day allow China to grow superior troops, or turn regular soldiers into super ones. It’s a highly controversial and largely scientifically unproven field of research, replete with risks and ethical pitfalls. But, as Kania points out: “China has been the first nation to progress towards trials of CRISPR in humans, including a recent study of embryo base editing.”
She noted that China is partly chasing U.S. work in brain-computer interfaces: “The PLA has been influenced by its concerns over U.S. efforts to explore the military applications of cognitive neuroscience, and Chinese military experts appear to be concerned with keeping pace in developing such future capabilities.”
Kania presented on the subject at a conference organized by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command in March.
www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/10/defense-intel-chief-worried-about-chinese-integration-human-and-machines/151904/
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 11, 2018 12:01:53 GMT
Science Alert
Scientists Have Created an Optical Illusion That Tricks Your Brain Into Time Travel
How many flashes do you see?
DAVID NIELD 11 OCT 2018
How does the brain make sense of all the information we're bombarded with every second of every day?
It's a complicated question, but researchers have invented two new illusions that give us some clues – one optical and one auditory. And they both trick the brain into travelling back in time to fill in gaps it thinks it's missed. This is technically known as postdiction, where a stimulus can have an affect on what we think we saw or heard in the past – as opposed to prediction, which works in the other direction, forwards through time.
The two illusions, the Illusory Rabbit and the Invisible Rabbit, are among the first to show postdiction working across multiple senses – sound and vision. They help to demonstrate how something we think happened might not have happened at all.
"How does the brain determine reality with information from multiple senses that is at times noisy and conflicting? The brain uses assumptions about the environment to solve this problem," says one of the researchers, Noelle Stiles from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). ""
"When these assumptions happen to be wrong, illusions can occur as the brain tries to make the best sense of a confusing situation. We can use these illusions to unveil the underlying inferences that the brain makes."
You can check out the Illusory Rabbit for yourself below. How many flashes do you see?
Here's how the illusions work: think of a beep sounding and an on-screen flash appearing almost simultaneously.
Now imagine three of those combinations, just 58 milliseconds apart, happening as the flashes move from left to right across a display (the beep sound stays central).
In the Illusory Rabbit, the middle flash never happens, but most people still think they saw three flashes to match three beeps.
In the Invisible Rabbit, it's the middle beep that is missed – and the brain usually thinks there was no middle flash either.
The fact that the middle beep or flash IS getting manipulated shows postdiction at work – it's actually the last flash and beep that causes the illusion to happen. They make our brain alter what it perceived in the past.
"The significance of this study is twofold," says senior researcher Shinsuke Shimojo from Caltech. "First, it generalises postdiction as a key process in perceptual processing for both a single sense and multiple senses."
"The second significance is that these illusions are among the very rare cases where sound affects vision, not vice versa, indicating dynamic aspects of neural processing that occur across space and time."
All of this should prove helpful as scientists try and figure out how the brain makes sense of the world and presents the information to us. We've still got a long way to go in understanding the inner workings of the brain and how the mind's perception works.
Of course we make some pretty big decisions based on what we think is happening – so it's important to get it right. Many mental illnesses involve problems with perception too, so the more we know, the better we are able to find fixes.
"Illusions are a really interesting window into the brain," says Stiles. "By investigating illusions, we can study the brain's decision-making process."
The research has been published in PLOS One: journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204217
www.sciencealert.com/scientists-created-two-time-travelling-illusions-to-trick-brain-senses
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Oct 11, 2018 12:03:18 GMT
KARE 11 Published on Sep 17, 2018
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Crystal
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