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Friday, March 28, 2014

A Planet beyond Pluto - Scientists discover a new planet of Solar System

Scientists at the Carnegie Institute for Science has discovered a new and distant dwarf planet beyond Pluto in our solar system recently in third week of March, 2014.  The planet is named as 2012 VP113.  The scientists believe that the existence of this planet indicates that there may be another actual planet there which may be ten times bigger than the Earth.

The dwarf planet seems to be around 450 Kms.  wide  and orbits roughly 12.4 billion kilometers away from the Sun.  This distance is roughly 83 Astronomical Units away from Sun.  One astronomical unit or AU is 155.838 million Kilometers.

If the size of the dwarf planet is confirmed, it could be qualified as a dwarf planet in the same category of Pluto.  The researchers said that the discovery proves the existence of the inner Oort cloud, which is a region of icy bodies that lies far beyond the orbit of Nepture,.   The planet is currently named as 2012VP113 as announced on 26th March, 2014.  

The size of 2012 VP113 is half the size of Sedna discovered earlier.  Dwarf planets such as 2012 VP113 and Sedna, which travels as far as 949 AUs away from the sun on its 11,400-year orbit, form a placid "inner" Oort Cloud distinct from the outer one, the study suggests. Comets that plunge into the inner solar system are thought to be dispatched from the outer Oort Cloud by gravitational nudges from stars passing near our solar system.

 

Astronaut and 2 Cosmonauts arrive at International Space Station after 2 day delay

 A NASA astronaut and two Cosmonauts arrived finally at the International Space Station two days later than originally planned.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Mr. Steve Swanson and Soviet Cosmonauts Mr. Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev docked with the orbiting ISS at 7:53 PM EDT ( 23:53 GMT) on Thursday, March, 27, 2014. 

The three crew members blasted off on Tuesday afternoon ( March 25, 2014) and expected to arrive six hours later.  But there was a failure in the Soyuz to complete one of the automated burns required to pull off this "fast track" trip, forcing mission controllers to revert to a more traditional two-day chase and rendezvous.

 NASA officials said that all the systems on board Soyuz were functioning normally.  Arrival of these three crew members brings the space station back up to its full complement of six crew members.  The new crew members join the NASA's Rick Mastracchio, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

 

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Japan launches next generation satellite to track rainfall and snow


The H-IIA rocket blasted off from a southern Japanese island at 3:37 am on Friday, 28th February, 2014  (1837 GMT Thursday) as scheduled, with the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core observatory aboard. 


The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, which is jointly developed by NASA and the JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) was launched by Japan and the rocket blasted off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center on 28th February, 2014.


The GPM satellite is designed to collect data from several other satellites in orbit and add that to its own measurement to build up a detailed picture of precipitation around Earth.  Weather forecasters say that with more detailed and  complete map of rain and precipitation they will be better able to predict events like typhoons and floods.  

The GPM will provide near real-time observations of precipitation every 3 hours all over the world which improves scientists' understanding of climate changes and global water cycle.
The H-IIA rocket blasted off from a southern Japanese island at 3:37 am on Friday (1837 GMT Thursday) as scheduled, with the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core observatory aboard, JAXA said.
The satellite, jointly developed by Japan and the United States, is designed to collect data from several other satellites in orbit and add that to its own measurements to build up a detailed picture of precipitation around the planet.
Weather forecasters say that with a more detailed and complete map of rain they will be better able to predict extreme events such as typhoons and floods.
On Thursday, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is now aboard the International Space Station along with NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, told his 74,000 Twitter followers he was hoping for a smooth launch.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-japan-readies-hi-tech-global-rainfall.html#jCp