Tres-4b-blog - ✰

Love him to Mars and back ❤️

In 1995, NASA astronomer Bob Williams wanted to point the Hubble telescope at the darkest part of the sky for 100 hours. Critics said it was a waste of valuable time, and he’d have to resign if it came up blank. Instead it revealed over 3,000 galaxies, in an area 1/30th as wide as a full moon.

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

—Carl Sagan

Actual advice on how to study for engineering courses from a first year student

Okay so I just finished my first semester in university and lets just say I’ve got to change my whole learning/studying style to be able to survive here. Here are some of the things I’ve learnt to do and will be doing in second semester:

1. Start backwards:

 I highschool, you try to learn the subject by going to class, listening to the teacher, then going home, reading the textbook, then doing the homework, then making notes, then studying for the final. In engineering, you have to do this backwards: You will realize that you are going to be basically teaching yourself the content one way or another soon before the finals, so better start now. First, go through the past exams and past papers - make a list of all the major topics covered (example: if in an electrical circuits course, a question on a past final exam is “find the equivalent circuit using thevenin’s theorem” then write Thevenin’s theorem as a topic to be learned). Then go on youtube and find videos that explain each of these topics to you and make rough notes on these topics. (Reblog if you want me to make a master list of all the youtubers that teach engineering really well). Then go through he textbook and find sample questions not he theorem/topic you learnt off of youtube, and solve them. Then write your doubts in a notebook. Then go to class and have two notebooks open : one where you are taking notes of what the prof is saying, and one which has your practice problems solved, and see if the prof clarifies your doubts in the lecture. The lecture should be review of what you learnt at home!!!! Then, after class go to the prof and clarify any doubts. Then go home and make final notes on the topic. I like to make notes on cue cards (more on this later). Then go back to the final exam and see if you can solve the problem.

2. Make cue cards:

I like to get index cards and write a short note on how to solve each type of question I am likely to see on a final exam on each question card. Example: one cue card for “how to find resistance using wheatstone bridge” . I link the cue cards with a clip and its easier to carry the around and study.

3. Get pretty notebooks and organize your stationary. Its easier to stay focused when everything is pretty. 

Every satellite around Earth

via reddit

need a cheat sheet for the astrological symbols? here’s one!

New GIPHY!

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

SONY. COMPUTER. ENTERTAINMENT.