Really Rocket Science

NASA’s Cassini orbiter has recorded something never before seen on another planet — "a hurricane-like storm at Saturn’s south pole with a well-developed eye, ringed by towering clouds."

(Click on the image above to play a movie of the storm.)

From the NASA press release:

 The "hurricane" spans a dark area inside a thick, brighter ring of clouds. It is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, or two thirds the diameter of Earth.

"It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn’t behave like a hurricane," said Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini’s imaging team at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Whatever it is, we’re going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it’s there."

A movie taken by Cassini’s camera over a three-hour period reveals winds around Saturn’s south pole blowing clockwise at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour. The camera also saw the shadow cast by a ring of towering clouds surrounding the pole, and two spiral arms of clouds extending from the central ring. These ring clouds, 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center of the storm, are two to five times taller than the clouds of thunderstorms and hurricanes on Earth.

Eye-wall clouds are a distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth. They form where moist air flows inward across the ocean’s surface, rising vertically and releasing a heavy rain around an interior circle of descending air that is the eye of the storm itself. Though it is uncertain whether such moist convection is driving Saturn’s storm, the dark "eye" at the pole, the eye-wall clouds and the spiral arms together indicate a hurricane-like system.

Distinctive eye-wall clouds had not been seen on any planet other than Earth. Even Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, much larger than Saturn’s polar storm, has no eye or eye-wall and is relatively calm at the center.

This giant Saturnian storm is apparently different from hurricanes on Earth because it is locked to the pole and does not drift around. Also, since Saturn is a gaseous planet, the storm forms without an ocean at its base. 

 Click here to view a movie of the storm.

The Chicago Sun Times reports on a new first along the "Miracle Mile":

If you’re lost on Michigan Avenue, stop in the new Garmin store, and you won’t stay lost for long.

Billed as the world’s first GPS-only store, Garmin, the leader in the U.S. GPS market, on Saturday is opening a two-story, 10,000-square-foot store at 663 N. Michigan, featuring GPS devices for cars, fitness, camping and boating that tap into satellite signals to tell users how to get where they want to go…

[Spokesman Ted Gartner] said Garmin’s products typically are sold in electronics superstores, such as Best Buy and Circuit City, and online at Amazon.com. But, he said, "Our GPS units in stores typically are under glass. In the Garmin store, people will be able to handle them and see how they work…."

The Garmin store was designed by Chicago-based Valerio Dewalt Train Associates Inc. A 30-foot wood wall that runs around the entire store is a dominant feature.

Is this a link to GPS’s heritage as manufacturer of devices used to help outdoors types find their way?

Architect Joe Valerio said the design is intended to be ambiguous. He said the wood "reminds you of the walls of a canyon. Or is it the hull of a boat? Or the fender of a car? It is intentionally mysterious."

The backdrop contrasts with the precision of Garmin products, which, he said, "use GPS technology to make our world much less mysterious and much more understandable."

While the Garmin store in Chicago is the first GPS-only store of its kind in the world, others would dispute that GPS makes the world "less mysterious" and "more understandable." Computing Which? magazine recently conducted a study comparing the use of GPS and traditional road atlases for navigating the cold streets of the UK:

The ‘good old-fashioned’ £8 AA map-book not only beat a sophisticated £220 sat-nav system – costing nearly 28 times more and getting the driver lost down "obscure" country detours – it also knocked the socks off a computer-based route-finder costing £45.

The low-tech road atlas also trounced the Government’s own free online ‘Transport Direct’ website, which was by far the worst, giving motorists incorrect directions, sending them miles out of their way and taking users twice as long to get to their destination.

The findings follow a series of high-profile cases in which motorists – following their in-car sat-nav systems – have found themselves diverted along obscure and unsuitable roads, stuck in fords, rivers, or impassibly narrow lanes.

Even easier, as my wife constantly reminds me, is to stop at the next gas station and ask. But homey don’t play that.

Speaking GPS navigation in cars,  the Central Valley Business Times reports on one way that you shouldn’t use GPS if you’re a car rental agency:

Fox Rent A Car really knew where you were. And charged for it, the state of California says.

The largest California-based independent car rental company illegally slapped surcharges on those who traveled outside a three-state area and unlawfully forced customers to buy liability insurance, according to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

How did it know where its customers were driving? The state says it tracked its cars with GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices.

Fox paid nearly $750,000 in damages and penalties to settle the consumer privacy case. It would have been cheaper to throw in an atlas.

For all the advances in cool consumer gadgetry in the last decade — from Ipods to High Definition Television to the proliferation of satellite radio and television — there is one thing that keeps contemporary gadgets tethered to the past: their wires.

That may begin to change in the next year. CNET reports today that "several leading consumer electronics companies are expected to announce… that they are working together to develop a new standard for transmitting high-definition audio and video signals wirelessly."

The new standard is to be known as WirelessHD, "with the stated goal of enabling wireless connectivity for streaming HD content between source devices and high-definition displays."

From the CNET report: 

 Televisions are the "natural" application for [WirelessHD], said John Marshall, president of WirelessHD. Eventually the technology will make its way into adapters for source devices like notebook PCs, digital video recorders, HD disc players, digital audio players and digital cameras. Because it does not compress the digital video, the experience will be the same as using a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) or digital video interface (DVI) cable, he said.

The specification will maintain high-quality video, ensure the interoperability of CE devices, protect from signal interference and use existing content protection techniques, Marshall said.

WirelessHD will use the unlicensed 60GHz radio frequency band to send uncompressed HD video and audio at 5 gigabits per second at distances of up to 30 feet, or within one room of a house. While most other wireless audio and video transmissions occur in the 2.4GHz-to-5GHz range, WirelessHD says neither will allow the fast transmition speeds required for high-definition content.

WirlessHD will rely upon the new 802.11n WLAN system, which is supported by… well, just about everybody. (Check out the Enhanced Wireless Consortium  for a list of companies that are working together to accelerate the development process of 802.11n.)

Among consumer electronics companies that are already releasing products capable of interoperability with the draft specifications is Apple, new line of Intel Core 2 Duo-based iMacs sport AirPort cards capable of supporting 802.11n, "which supports connection speeds of up to 540Mbps, or a 10-fold increase compared to existing 802.11g networks," according to Think Secret.

Speaking of Apple — rumors persist that the company is set to unveil both a 50 inch monitor and the new iPhone in January. 

But will we need to connect them with cords? 

Longtime Really Rocket Science readers will recall our intrepid reporting on the "Ipod From Space" rumor that went around the Internets back in March.

As it turned out, there was no grand marketing plan to unveil an Ipod that was viewable from space. But since then, at least one Ipod has gone into space: Anousheh Ansari brought her Ipod with her when she became the first female space tourist (and first female Muslimin in space) when she travelled to the International Space Station last month. (Ansari blogged about her cosmic music selection here.)

Hey, who doesn’t like a little electronic diversion on a long commercial flight? 

All of this is to say that sometimes a technological and design break through isn’t really rocket science — but it can change the world nonetheless. 

And today, on the Ipod’s fifth birthday, we doff our hats to the beautiful design and transformative power of what is — let’s face it — not much more than a portable hard drive with an occassionally buggy OS.

But our Ipods are something we just can’t imagine living without. And that, ultimately, is the most meaningful testament  to any technology.

But we’re not alone in singing the Ipod’s praises today: it’s been hailed as "The Perfect Thing" and "The Poster Child for the 21st Century."

Everyone from Queen Elizabeth to the janitor in our building has one. It’s been to space. Thousands of them have entertained our troops abroad. And they’ve changed the way we purchase and listen to music — transforming the entire music industry in the process.

Not bad for a cute little piece of plastic.

Following up on Spektor’s post on Wednesday about the Wirefly X-Prize Cup (which begins today in Las Cruces, New Mexico), Space.com reports that the first first Mark-1 X-Racer will be known as the Thunderhawk:

 Unveiling the Thunderhawk [image] today at the Wirefly X Prize Cup, RRL officials said that the moniker beat out names like Banshee and Sky Warrior in an online contest that generated more than 2,000 submissions from fans around the planet.

The world headquarters of the Rocket Racing League is based here. The RRL aims to debut its first NASCAR-style races in late Fall 2007 – a first-of-its-kind aerospace sports and entertainment league formed by X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and Granger Whitelaw, a two-time Indy 500 champion team partner….

The fan submitting the winning name is Michael Higgins of New Market, Maryland. He’s an engineer and manager working in the composite pressure vessel industry serving life-support and aerospace/defense applications.

Higgins outlined today how he came up with the Thunderhawk moniker.

“The aircraft, with its rocket propulsion, combines thunderous sound with brilliant flame and light. So I worked up several names focused on thunder and light, and tried to connect those with a bird of prey,” he explained. 

Higgins said he expected the RRL races will put rocket propulsion technology in front of thousands of people through thrilling events. 

“They should generate public interest in rockets and space, much like the famous air races of the 1920s and 1930s did during the golden era of aviation,” Higgins said.

The contest began January 30 and attracted over 2,000 submissions. The top 1,000 names were whittled down to ten semi-finalists by a panel of RRL judges. Fans then were able to vote for their favorite name from the top ten on AOL. 

Nearly 20,000 votes were cast via AOL, selecting Thunderhawk the most popular name.

The live webcast from events at the Wirefly X-Prize Cup is now up; Really Rocket Scientists like us (who couldn’t attend in person) will be glued to the webcast and news coming out of Las Cruces today and tomorrow. (On-demand video from the event can be found here.)

That’s the question many are asking when they see this stunning new image of the merging Antennae galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope:

Reuters explains: 

A seemingly violent collision of two galaxies is in fact a fertile marriage that has birthed billions of new stars, and an image released on Tuesday gives astronomers their best view yet.

The new image of the Antennae galaxies allows astronomers working with the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope to distinguish between new stars and the star clusters that form them.

Most of these clusters, created in the collision of the two galaxies, will disperse within 10 million years but about 100 of the largest will grow into "globular clusters" — large groups of stars found in many galaxies, including our own Milky Way.

The Antennae galaxies, 68 million light years from Earth, began to fuse 500 million years ago.

The image serves as a preview for the Milky Way’s likely collision with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, about 6 billion years from now.

So if you’ve ever gotten the feeling that everything was heading towards a tremendous smash-up — well, you’re right.

You can zoom in on the above image at the HubbleSite. 

The BBC reports on Europe’s first polar-orbit satellite:

Europe is set to launch its most sophisticated weather and climate satellite to date.

The MetOp spacecraft will be lofted into its 850km-high polar orbit by a Soyuz-Fregat vehicle from Kazakhstan.

The platform should improve forecasting globally, and give scientists detailed data they can use to refine models describing how Earth’s systems work.

Metop has eight instruments to gather a range of data about the planet’s atmospheric and surface conditions….

Metop is a joint project of the European Space Agency (Esa) and Eumetsat, the intergovernmental organisation charged by European member states with operating a series of orbiting weather observatories….

The new platform weighs more than four tonnes and measures almost 18m (60ft) with its solar wing unfurled.

The Eumetsat website will feature a stream broadcasting the launch live. For more information on the satellite, visit the ESA Portal, or click here for a cool animated video explaining the satellite and its mission.

"Most technical systems that employ satellites, including GPS technology, make use of atomic clocks; these technologies can now operate much more accurately," thanks to a recent breakthrough in understanding errors in atomic clock technology, ScienceDaily reports:

Andrei Derevianko, Kyle Beloy, and Ulyana Safronova [of the University of Nevada, Reno] sat down six months ago and began work on a calculation that will help the world keep better time….

Associate physics professor Andrei Derevianko and his team isolated and explained a significant portion of the error in atomic clock output….

In its research, the University team was able to isolate and explain a significant portion of the error in atomic clock output. The portion of error that the team studied has now been cut to one-fiftieth of its original size. The team’s research was based solely on calculations, many of which were conducted on high performance computers…

In 2004, an Italian research team found some convincing evidence that suggested that atomic clocks were less accurate then previously thought. This evidence concerned the scientific community and gave the theory behind atomic clocks renewed international attention….

Atomic clock technology is based on the fact that atoms emit a fixed frequency. Lasers, which also have operating frequencies, can be calibrated so that their frequencies match that of a given atom. Since atomic frequencies are constant, syncing a laser with an atom and counting the laser’s oscillations will always provide a steady measurement of time….

The new findings are also paving the way for all kinds of new scientific experimentation. Extremely accurate measurements are required to make estimations about the behaviors of the universe. The extra time-keeping precision will allow scientists to explore hypotheses about the big-bang theory. The improved technology might even be accurate enough to provide evidence related to the controversial theory that universal constants, as in the amount of charge in an electron, are changing.

So how does one tune in to the more accurate atomic clock? Why, with an atomic clock receiver, of course:

A radio system is available in North America set up and operated by NIST – the National Institute of Standards and Technology, located in Fort Collins, Colorado. NIST operates radio station WWVB, which is the station that transmits the time codes. WWVB has high transmitter power (50,000 watts), a very efficient antenna and an extremely low frequency (60,000 Hz). For comparison, a typical AM radio station broadcasts at a frequency of 1,000,000 Hz. The combination of high power and low frequency gives the radio waves from WWVB a lot of bounce, and this single station can therefore cover the entire continental United States plus much of Canada and Central America. The time codes are sent from WWVB using one of the simplest systems possible, and at a very low data rate of one bit per second. The 60,000 Hz signal is always transmitted, but every second it is significantly reduced in power for a period of 0.2, 0.5 or 0.8 seconds: • 0.2 seconds of reduced power means a binary zero • 0.5 seconds of reduced power is a binary one. • 0.8 seconds of reduced power is a separator. The time code is sent in BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) and indicates minutes, hours, day of the year and year, along with information about daylight savings time and leap years. The time is transmitted using 53 bits and 7 separators, and therefore takes 60 seconds to transmit. A clock or watch can contain an extremely small and relatively simple antenna and receiver to decode the information in the signal and set the clock’s time accurately. All that you have to do is set the time zone, and the atomic clock will display the correct time.

So you’ve made the decision to get a C-Band receiver at home, so you can watch (what else?) NASA TV and other free to air channels from around the globe.

Now, you think, it’s DIY Firday — and how the heck do you hook the thing up to your dish?

HomeCable.com offers a set of standard instructions and diagrams to help you get started. 

There are several places online where you can get C-band receivers and antennas. Sadoun Satellite sales offers the Fortec Star FC6D. Mechtech and RPS Satellite offer several models, as does Global Communications.

What other sources do readers turn to for their antenna and receiver needs? Let us know in the comment threads — or if there are other DIY Friday topics you’d like to see us cover. 

Among those who aren’t suspicious of undertaking major endeavors on Friday the 13th, you can include both Arianespace and DirecTV.

The Ariane 5ECA rocket is scheduled to launch tomorrow afternoon between 4:56 and 5:56 pm, U.S. Eastern time. The launch will take place from the ESA spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The launch will service three customers and deploy three satellites: DirecTV’s 9S, Optus’ Optus D1, and JAXA’s LDREX-2.  

The 9S satellite "will be capable of providing up to 54 transponders for high-quality local and national digital video service broadcast into 27 beams. In an alternate configuration, the satellite will be capable of providing up to 44 transponders broadcast into 30 beams."

Want to know what to expect from the launch, second by second? Check out Spaceflight Now’s cool launch cue card.