New Horizon Passes Pluto

Pluto from New Horizon craft 20150714Pluto was discovered/confirmed in 1930 by a 23-year old Kansas farm boy, Clyde Tombaugh, using a telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

After a 2 month search for names, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Venetia Burney, from Oxford, England, suggested the name Pluto to her father who passed it on to an astronomy professor who passed it on to colleagues in the United States.

New Horizons’ almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space — the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball. Source: NASA 2015-07-14

When the New Horizon spacecraft was launched in January 2006, Pluto was still the 9th planet. Nine months later, in September, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. It belonged more to the Kuiper belt (or Trans-Neptunian objects) than with the rest of our eight planets.

More time off the clock

Now it seems with every major earthquake, (in theory) our days are getting shorter.

Richard Gross, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth’s mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds. “Earthquakes change the Earth

I wonder what the effects of a faster-spinning planet are to people? Will we get stronger, taller? Will the weather get more violent because of magnetic pole changes?

Less than honorable end to Lisa Nowak’s career

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Navy should discharge former astronaut Lisa Nowak, who lost her NASA job over a bizarre airport attack on a romantic rival, according to a Navy panel that reviewed her case.

The panel of three admirals made the recommendation Thursday after a daylong hearing at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville.

The recommendation now goes to the Naval Personnel Command. A final decision will be made by the Secretary of the Navy. In the meantime, Nowak will continue working on the staff of the chief of Naval Air Training in Corpus Christi, Tex.

She flew on the space shuttle in 2006, but was dismissed from the astronaut corps after her arrest in 2007. There was no listed number for Nowak in Corpus Christi and Nowak’s commanding officer in Texas didn’t immediately return a call Friday.

The panel recommended downgrading Nowak from captain to commander and giving her a discharge of “other than honorable.”

Source: The Associated Press: Navy panel votes to discharge ex-astronaut Nowak.

Earthquakes shorten our days

Wow. I never realized that this happened.

The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day … by about 1.26 microseconds. Source: NASA – Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days.

What does this mean? Is the earth spinning faster? Some answers are around on the web, but not many.

A shortened day could mean sunlight shines on a spot for less time, and darkness would cover an area for less time too. I think what it would affect more than the clock though. I think gravity, surface temperature, climate, the moon’s orbit, satellites’ orbits, would be affected to name a few. Only (a shortened) time will tell.

Wacky Astronaut Lady Is Back

Her rival for another astronaut, Colleen Shipman, also testifies as Nowak tries to get ankle monitor removed.
Sarah Lundy and Walter Pacheco, Sentinel Staff Writers
2:11 PM PDT, August 24, 2007
ORLANDO, Fla. – A day that started with the dramatic first appearance of former astronaut Lisa Nowak on the witness stand ended six hours later with a judge deciding this afternoon that more time was needed to consider pretrial motions in the case.

When last we left Ms. Nowak, she had been arrested for assaulting an alleged girlfriend of her former lover.

Source: Former astronaut Lisa Nowak takes the stand – Los Angeles Times

Astronaut arrested on attempted kidnapping charges

But the real dirt in this story:

Inside the car, police found an a half-dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers that Nowak said she used to eliminate stops along the highway, a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein and directions to Shipman’s home address in Florida, the report said.

Source: CNN.com