Sunset Over South America

EARTH WATCH
NASA – The Expedition 27 crew photographed this sunset over western South America from aboard the International Space Station. The station crew sees, on average, sixteen sunrises and sunsets during a 24-hour orbital period. Each changeover between day and night on the ground is marked by the terminator, or line separating the sunlit side of Earth from the side in darkness. While the terminator is conceptualized as a hard boundary–and is frequently presented as such in graphics and visualizations–in reality the boundary between light and dark is diffuse due to scattering of light by Earth’s atmosphere.

This zone of diffuse lighting is experienced as dusk or twilight on the ground–while the sun is no longer visible, some illumination is still present due to light scattering over the local horizon. The terminator is visible in this photograph trending across the image from lower left to upper right. This panoramic view across central South America, looking towards the northeast, was acquired at approximately 7:37 p.m. local time. Layers of Earth’s atmosphere, colored bright white to deep blue, are visible extending across the horizon. The highest cloud tops have a reddish glow from the direct light of the setting sun while lower clouds are in twilight. The Salar de Coipasa, a large salt lake in Bolivia, is dimly visible on the night side of the terminator. The salar provides a geographic reference point that allows the location and viewing orientation of the image to be determined.

A “Rube Goldberg theory of regulation”: Net neutrality hearing gets testy

VIDEO 20:18
By Nate Anderson – The Federal Communications Commission chair, Julius Genachowski, smiled placidly as he was raked over the coals; even his contention that many Americans live under a broadband duopoly was treated as a ludicrous argument.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), adopting the manner of man who has caught a dim-witted opponent between the steely pincers of his own logic, glowered at Genachowski during his questioning. “Should we make gasoline and diesel the same price?” he thundered. more> http://is.gd/b1x08Q

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• Straight from Washington, new Comcast executive will face lobbying limits, Bob Fernandez, Philly.com
• Genachowski denies discussing net neutrality with Obama, Gautham Nagesh, Hill
• Julius Genachowski is a lightning rod for right, left; Jay Westcott, POLITICO.com
• FCC chief decides anti-trust law isn’t good for fighting anti-competition, Kevin Fogarty, ITworld
• FCC chief: antitrust law can’t adequately defend Internet, Jasmin Melvin, Reuters, Yahoo! News
• FCC chairman defends net neutrality rules, Grant Gross, IDG News Service/Network World
• Al Franken Makes Senate Stand for Net Neutrality, Timothy Karr, TheHuffingtonPost.com
• House Hearing on: “Ensuring Competition on the Internet: Net Neutrality and Antitrust: Part II, FCC Panel”, US Congress

Sen. Franken’s Floor Statement Net Neutrality Rules

NASA Gravity Experiment Finds Space-Time Vortex Around Earth

By Rebecca Boyle – Einstein’s theories of relativity hold that space and time are woven together into a four-dimensional fabric, and that a weighty body like a planet or a star depresses that fabric, like someone sitting on a chair or a trampoline.

Orbiting 400 miles above the Earth in a polar orbit, GP-B contains four gyroscopes made of quartz-silicon spheres that are considered nearly perfect. It has a telescope that stared at a single star, IM Pegasi, while the satellite made its rounds. If the Earth’s mass did not affect spacetime, the gyroscopes would point the same direction forever. But they didn’t, experiencing teeny but measurable changes in the direction of their spin. This is exactly what Einstein predicted back in 1916. more> http://is.gd/K9NxHO

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• Over 50 Years Later, NASA Probe Proves Two of Einstein’s Theories Correct, Chris Gayomali, TIME.com
• NASA’s Gravity Probe B Confirms Two Einstein Space-Time Theories, NASA

Turning his near-ghost town into a clean-tech boomtown

By Tiffany Hsu – Gerald Freeman was prospecting for gold in the Mojave Desert when he stumbled on Nipton.

In 1984, it had become a virtual ghost town. Its sole resident lived in the trading post selling sodas to the occasional wayward traveler who might briefly stop to watch freight trains rumble past on the nearby Union Pacific railroad.

But where most saw desolation, Freeman saw “a little place to make a home” and maybe some money too. The Caltech-trained geologist shelled out $200,000 to buy the tiny, tattered outpost. more> http://is.gd/M131Be

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• Clean tech is back — or is it? Tim Mullaney, USATODAY.com

NASA’s Future Planetary Mission

NASA – NASA’s Discovery Program gives scientists the opportunity to dig deep into their imaginations and find innovative ways to unlock the mysteries of the solar system. When it began in 1992, this program represented a breakthrough in the way NASA explores space.

NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to:

• look at Mars’ interior for the first time;
• study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn’s moons;  or
• study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet’s nucleus.

Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission’s concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:

• Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) would study the structure and composition of the interior of Mars and advance understanding of the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets.

• Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn’s moon Titan.

• Comet Hopper would study cometary evolution by landing on a comet multiple times and observing its changes as it interacts with the sun.

The proposals selected for technology development are:

• Primitive Material Explorer (PriME) would develop a mass spectrometer that would provide highly precise measurements of the chemical composition of a comet and explore the objects’ role in delivering volatiles to Earth.

• Whipple: Reaching into the Outer Solar System would develop and validate a technique called blind occultation that could lead to the discovery of various celestial objects in the outer solar system and revolutionize our understanding of the area’s structure.

• NEOCam would develop a telescope to study the origin and evolution of NEOs and study the present risk of Earth-impact. It would generate a catalog of objects and accurate infrared measurements to provide a better understanding of small bodies that cross our planet’s orbit.

more> http://is.gd/ZJlKAj