Newly Discovered Asteroid Missed Earth but will Return in 2032

Recently, an asteroid made a close pass (in astronomical terms) by Earth. It was newly discovered and it is probable that it will return in 2032, although there is just a really small chance that it will crash the Earth or even create an impact crater according to NASA. It is said that it is a one in 63,000 chance that it will hit Earth.

The asteroid is known as 2013 TV135. It passed 4.2 million miles or 6.7 million km from Earth this past Wednesday according to the U.S. Space Agency.

Astronomers from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Ukraine discovered it on October 8th.
Don Yeomans who is the manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California said "To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent."

More information about the asteroid is being presented next week.

They believe the asteroid is 1,300 feet in size.

The "Spaceguard" or the Near-Earth Object Observation Program tracks asteroids and comets that go by Earth to see if any could cause harm to be able to find a solution and avoid a natural catastrophe.

This asteroid is one of the 10,332 near-Earth objects that have been identified so far.

MLA Citation:
"Newly Discovered Asteroid Missed Earth but Will Return in 2032." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 29 Apr.
0000. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/newly-discovered-asteroid-missed-earth- return-2032-193217461.html.

Biggest Star Ever Found Is Ripping Apart

The biggest star ever found by scientists is called the W26. It is even bigger tan the sun! This star is

1,500 times wider than the sun. The star is nearly dying, since the bigger the star, the faster they die.


Officials with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in the U.K. said in a statement. "Some of the

most massive stars have lifetimes of less than a few million years before they exhaust their nuclear

fuel and explode as supernovas. At the very ends of their lives these stars become highly unstable and

eject a considerable amount of material from their outer envelopes."


The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile is

being used by astronomers to study the Westerlund 1, a large cluster of stars in the Milky Way

Galaxy about 16,000 light years from Earth. W26 is one of the stars in this collection of stars.


The W26 is surrounded by a cloud of hydrogen which is the first "ionized nebula" found around one of those stars.



MLA Citation:

Miriam Kramer, Staff. "Biggest Star Ever Found Is Ripping Apart." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 30 

             Oct. 0000. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-star-ever-found-ripping-apart-photo-135019188.html>.

Seeking the Loneliest Whale

Scientists, have found out that there is a lonely whale in the North Pacific. Nobody has seen it but the
whale's 52- Hertz calls have revealed it's existance. This high pitch has been recorded by even the
U.S. Navy since 1989. It is believed the whale is a male since it's pitch is only heard during mating
season. Scientists know the whale isn't in a group because the whale goes through doesn't match
groups' paths. It appears to be healthy because it has swam as much as 11,000 kilometers in a season.



Bruce Mate, who is the director of the Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute in
Newport will try to find the whale in an expedition next year. He thinks it's not the last member of an
endagered or extinct species. He thinks it might be a hybrid, a mix of two species. The expedition
will be documented by filmmakers. He said "We're trying to track these whales from the season we
know to the season that we don't. There hasn't been an experiment yet where we didn't have "an 'a-ha'
moment."




MLA FORMAT:

 

Perkins, Sid. "People: The Science Life: Seeking The Loneliest Whale." Science News 184.6 (2013): 

 

              32. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.

Voyager 1

Voyager 1 made it out of the solar system more tan a year ago and is now 13 billion miles (21 billion km), which makes the distance farther tan from the earth to the sun.

Scientists believe Voyager 1 made it out of the solar system in August 2012. That summer, Voyager 1 sent back loads of information about galactic cosmic rays from outside the solar system.

Last year, scientists concluded that Voyager had reached interstellar space and was still recording measurements from magnetic fields that were similar to those of the sun.

A phycisist from University of Alabama in Huntsville called Gary Zank said
"The magnetic field is still something that puzzles us considerably."

"Scientists now believe the interstellar magnetic field is somehow draped around and twisted by the heliosphere, the bubble of space under the sun's influence."

Voyager 1 has a sister spacecraft called Voyager 2.



Klotz, Irene. Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 30 Dec. -0001. Web. 12 Sept. 2013. <http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-confirm-voyager-1-probe-interstellar-space-204809737.html>.

NASA Robotic Spacecraft Lifts Off to Probe Lunar Dust

NASA sent a small satellite to the moon on Friday at 11:27 pm EDT from the Virginia coast. The satellite was sent with an "unmanned" rocket.  LADEE or Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer is designed to look for dust coming from the lunar surface, which is a mystery reported decades ago by Apollo astronauts. This is the first time in 40 years that NASA has the opportunity to research this phenomenon.

LADEE will explore the moon's atmosphere from an orbit of 31 miles above the lunar surface. "The tenuous atmosphere, which contains argon, helium, sodium, potassium and other elements, may hold clues about how water came to be trapped inside craters on the moon's frozen poles." The moon's atmosphere however, is more delicate tan ours.

The mission will take 30 days and includes three passes around Earth timed perfectly so that in the final orbit LADEE will be able to capture the moon's gravity.

"The $280 million mission is expected to last about six months."

Citation:
Klotz, Irene. Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 06 Sept. 2013. Web. 08 Sept. 2013.   <http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-robotic-spacecraft-lifts-off-probe-lunar-dust-035827410--finance.html>.

Niels Bohr

Here is a prezi to inform about the atomic model, life and career, theories, and experiments of Niels Bohr.
By: Lucia Hasfura, Daniella Chicas (http://daniellachicaschemistryblog.blogspot.com/) and Adriana Guevara (http://adriguevarachemistry.blogspot.com/)
Here's the link: Niels Bohr Prezi

Identical Twin U.S. Astronauts to Serve as Research Subjects

NASA hired identical twins to conduct an experiment to investigate the "genetic impacts of long-

duration spaceflight."

Astronaut Mark Kelly is staying on Earth to be the informational base of the experiment while his identical twin, Scott Kelly, is being the informational base during orbit.

Scott “is preparing for a year-long mission aboard the International Space Station, the longest single spaceflight NASA has ever attempted.” He has been veteran in two shuttle missions and has been a crew member at the space station and commander too.

Mark lives in Arizona with his wife but is willing to travel as much as needed to Houston to conduct the experiment. He left his work at NASA in 2011 to take care of his wife (Gabrielle Giffords, who is a former U.S. Representative) who was shot through the head in January of 2011 at a political event in Arizona in which a gunman left six people killed and 26 wounded.

Scientists will investigate the differences between the twins while one is in a gravity-free environment and the other one is in Earth.

The yearlong spaceflight is set to launch in March of 2015. The twins will have just turned 50.

 

 

 

 

 MLA Citation:

"Identical Twin U.S. Astronauts to Serve as Research Subjects." NewsDaily:. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Aug.
           2013.

Metric System Prezi

This is the link to my "Metric System Prezi"

http://prezi.com/hnztagwl5d0p/metric-system/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Safety and Chemistry Class

Science is one of my favorite subjects even though sometimes I find it hard to understand depending on the lesson learned. One of my favorite things about science is getting to do experiments since its a fun way to learn. This year I'll make sure to bring all my homework in time and pay attention so that I don't get lost and get bad grades on the test.
Safety is one of the most important things to keep in mind in science class, especially chemistry because of the dangerous chemicals. Some safety rules to keep in mind are:
1. Inform the instructor in case of an emergency.
2. Girls should wear a ponytail.
3. Wear goggles and an apron AT ALL TIMES WHILE IN THE LAB AREA
4. No horseplay
5. No food or drink
These are just some of the important rules to follow. If you follow them, it is less probable that there is an accident.

Kepler Spacecraft Disabled

In 2009, NASA sent a spacecraft called Kepler which it's primary goal was "...to determine the frequency of Earth-like planets that orbit stars similar to our sun in one selected area of the Milky Way, and by extension throughout the universe." In a few years Kepler detected 135 planets and more tan 3,500 candidate planets. No planets that have all the "habitable" resources we need have been discovered yet, and Kepler was the closest we had to discovering one. However, in May of 2013, Kepler stopped working properly and since that day NASA has been trying to fix it but has been unsuccessful in completing the mission. There is no way Kepler will be able to fulfill its determined purpose again but NASA is now trying to figure out if there is another way Kepler and the telescope could be used for research. Many other uses for Kepler have been proposed since the problem was first identified. Some other purposes include studying asteroids, comets, supernovae and some large planets in our galaxy.
William Borucki, Kepler's science principal investigator said "While the mission to collected information about planets that orbit a small slice of the Milky Way will now end, analysis of the data collected so far will go on for three or four years, and great results are anticipated." He also said how the Kepler investigation isn't over yet, and how they are expecting great and exciting new discoveries in the following years to come.
NASA giving up trying to fix Kepler will provide a new opportunity for more scientific discoveries since NASA is currently building TESS or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. TESS is planned to be launched in 2017.

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130815-kepler-nasa-science-nation-space-exoplanets/