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Sunrise Spring from Spyro: Year of the dragon.

James Veitch is a genius

Science never stops on the Space Station

The past two weeks in Earth orbit saw ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan conduct two of four planned spacewalks to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02.

Spacewalks are time-consuming to prepare, and can occupy many hours of an astronaut’s week in space.

Despite this, much of the science on the International Space Station continues unattended, controlled by operators on Earth.

Planners also find creative ways to fit experiment runs into a crewmember’s busy schedule.

Let us take look at some of the European research running at 28 800 km/h above Earth.

Many experiments, once they are set up, can run in the background while astronauts do other work.

Three experiments like this were initialised and fine-tuned over the past two weeks.

On 18 November, Roscosmos astronaut Alexander Skvortsov changed the camera mode for the Electromagnetic Levitator that recorded the melting and solidifying of metal alloys over the following nights, including one made of copper and zinc – both in vacuum and in helium gas.

The levitator allows researchers to inspect how metals form in controlled circumstances – without gravity skewing results.

The findings will help us understand how to make metals with interesting and useful properties for application in electronics and manufacturing.

The Multiscale Boiling experiment also ran for three days after fine-tuning that started on 11 November.

The experiment added an electrical field to boiling bubbles in space to recreate aspects of gravity.

At night, the experiment was turned off and data downloaded to ground control for researchers eager to understand more about how bubble formation can influence the way heat is transferred.

This study will help improve thermal management systems in space.

Other experiments in progress included radiation monitoring experiment Dosis-3D, and the Matiss-2 experiment that will collect dust and bacteria over six months to assess materials for cleaner spacecraft.

Alexander also prepared the PK-4 science campaign by clearing its tubes of air and then filling them with neon gas.

On 11 November gas was ignited into a plasma by applying a high voltage.

Micro-particles went for a ride in the plasma-tubes and became charged – behaving like atoms.

Lasers and cameras measure how the dust particles move and the data is recorded to hard drives to better understand how atoms interact on a molecular level.

The Russian-European experiment requires astronauts to “catch” the clouds of particles (using electromagnetic fields) when these come into view in the PK-4 chamber.

Crewmembers also need to swap the gas and hard drives for the experiments run remotely from ground.

Some experiments require astronauts to be the test subjects.

On 13 November Luca started his fifth session of the NutrISS experiment by measuring his body composition and reporting on his diet through the Everywear app.

This experiment will help scientists understand and respond to the changing nutritional requirements of humans in space.

Luca also found time during the past two weeks to take an Earth-based rover for a spin.

Called Analog-1, the experiment uses the Space Station as a stand-in for spacecraft orbiting another planet.

From orbit, Luca controlled a robot in the Netherlands, driving this around a geological site and collecting rocks as directed by a science team at ESA’s astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany.

Loading the software and setting up the experiment on the Station computers was done while Luca was outside the Space Station for the first spacewalk of his Beyond mission.

TOP IMAGE….ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan are helped into their American EMU spacesuits by NASA astronaut Christina Koch and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka ahead of the second spacewalk to service AMS-02. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02 is a cosmic ray detector that is helping scientists understand more about the origins of our Universe. To continue delivering groundbreaking science, its cooling system must be upgraded. However, it was never designed to be maintained in orbit making the spacewalking series particularly complex. ESA/NASA

CENTRE IMAGE….The Electromagnetic Levitator (EML) in the Columbus module of the International Space Station. The EML multi-user facility is designed for containerless materials processing in space. This photo was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst during his Blue Dot mission in 2014. ESA/NASA

LOWER IMAGE….We know our world is made of atoms and molecules, but even with the most powerful microscope we cannot see them moving, meaning our understanding of how molecules interact is based on experimentation and assumptions. The ESA–Roscosmos Plasma Kristall-4 experiment is recreating atomic interactions on a larger scale. A plasma is an electrically charged (‘ionised’) gas. It is considered to be the fourth state of matter, distinct from gas, liquid and solid matter. The image shows the parabolic flight setup of PK-4 used as a test model for the International Space Station. The plasma (orange glow) is created in a U-shaped glass tube with an electric field. The microparticles trapped in the chamber are illuminated by a green laser light allowing the observation of the motion of the particles. Plasma Kristall-4 will inject microscopic dust particles into a neon and argon tube to act as atom substitutes. As they float in the charged gas, they will collect negative charges as positive ions accumulate around them. As a result, they will start to repulse each other – just like atoms do in a fluid state. Doing this research on Earth is not possible – the dust particles would fall with gravity and the simulated atoms would not behave realistically. This experiment is making the atomic scale visible for analysis and will help scientists to understand the interactions of atoms. Michael Kretschmer

Nikola Tesla - The True Discoverer of the Rotating Magnetic Field

"Many erroneous statements have appeared in print relative to my discovery of the rotating magnetic field and invention of the induction motor which I was compelled to pass in silence. Great interests have waged a long and bitter contest for my patent rights; commercial animosities and professional jealousies were aroused, and I was made to suffer in more than one way. But despite of all pressure and efforts of ingenious lawyers and experts, the rulings of the courts were in support of my claims for priority in every instance without exception. The battles have been fought and forgotten, the thirty or forty patents granted to me on the alternating system have expired, I have been released of burdensome obligations and am free to speak...

"...A few words should be said in regard to the various claims for anticipation which were made upon the issuance of my patents in 1888, and in numerous suits conducted subsequently. There were three contestants for the honor, Ferraris, Schallenberger and Cabanellas. All three succumbed to grief. The opponents of my patents advanced the Ferraris claim very strongly, but any one who will peruse his little Italian pamphlet, which appeared in the spring of 1888, and compare it with the patent record filed by me seven months before, and with my paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, will have no difficulty in reaching a conclusion. Irrespective of being behind me in time, Prof. Ferraris's publication concerned only my split-phase motor, and in an application for a patent by him priority was awarded to me. He never suggested any of the essential practical features which constitute my system, and in regard to the split-phase motor he was very decided in his opinion that it was of no value. Both Ferraris and Schallenberger discovered the rotation accidentally while working with a Gullard and Gibbs transformer, and had difficulty in explaining the actions. Neither of them produced a rotating field motor like mine, nor were their theories the same as my own. As to Cabanellas, the only reason for his claim is an abandoned and defective technical document. Some over-zealous friends have interpreted a United States patent granted to Bradley as a contemporary record, but there is no foundation whatever for such a claim. The original application only described a generator with two circuits which were provided for the sole purpose of increasing the output. There was not much novelty in the idea, since a number of such machines existed at that time. To say that these machines were anticipations of my rotary transformer is wholly unjustified. They might have served as one of the elements in my system of transformation, but were nothing more than dynamos with two circuits constructed with other ends in view and in utter ignorance of the new and wonderful phenomena revealed through my discovery."

–Nikola Tesla

“Some Personal Recollections.” Scientific American, June 5, 1915.

Every satellite around Earth

via reddit

This is Earth, our amazing home. The only planet in the solar system with the ability to harbor life (that we know of).

This is the distance between our awesome planet and the moon. 

Doesn’t look that far does it? How about if I told you that you could fit EVERY planet in our solar system neatly in that distance. 

Speaking of the other planets in our solar system, this is them & this is where our amazing planet resides.

The moon’s our cute little companion. This is the United States compared to it.

The planets in the solar system are so cool. This is what North America looks like in comparison to Jupiter. 

Speaking of Jupiter and the moon, this is what it would look like if Jupiter was in the place of the moon. (The white dot is our moon). 

Earth compared to Saturn (well 6 Earths…)

Ever wonder about what Earth would look like if it had rings like Saturn? Well wonder no more.. 

Amazing right? Want to see something cooler? Here is the Earth compared to our Sun. 

Here’s what we look like from the moon

And from Mars

From Saturn 

From Neptune…

Here is what the Sun looks like from Mars

Remember what Carl Sagan said? There are more stars in space than grains of sand on every beach in the Earth. 

That’s a lot right? That only means there are stars way larger than our Sun..like this one for example: 

And there are stars bigger than that….

Stars are huge, but the galaxy is even bigger. If you shrunk the Sun down to the size of a white blood cell, the Milky Way Galaxy would be the size of the United States. 

This is where the Earth is in our huge galaxy 

You know all the stars we see in the sky? These are the ones we only ever see (this isn’t our galaxy but its very similar)

The Milky Way is so big that the last time the Earth was in this exact position in the galaxy, the dinosaurs were here

Even though our galaxy is huge, there are galaxies that are even bigger…

This picture from Hubble shows thousands of thousands of thousands of galaxies that each have their own stars with their own planets…

Here is one of the galaxies in that picture. It is 10 BILLION light years away. When we look at it, we are looking 10 BILLION YEARS BACK IN TIME

And just to keep this in mind, this is a very small portion of the sky that was believed to be empty…

Everything is relative. 

Next time you’re stressed out or worried about something, stop and take a step back. Look up at the sky and think about all of the things that are out there. All the stars being born, the stars dying, galaxies colliding. 

We live in such an amazing universe, and we are only an extremely tiny part of it. 

Credit- pictures from: Buzzfeed on Facebook