An Expressway to the ISS!!

2 Russian cosmonauts, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin, and the US astronaut, Chris Cassidy , took a shortcut to the ISS on friday.

Blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz carrying these three men Reached the ISS in just under 6 hours, as against the usual 50 hour journey from the earth to the space lab.  The advantage of this express route is that now the crew dose not have to sit cramped tightly in the capsule and also they can arrive before ant disabling effects of adapting to microgravity, which can include nausea. 

Asteroid Says Hello to Russia!!

February 15th ,2013 was not a good day for Russia, as an asteroid passes over Russia at about 3:20 UTC with an approx. speed of 40,000 mph (18 km/s). it became a brilliant superbolide meteor over the southern Ural region. The dazzling light of the meteor was bright enough to cast moving shadows during the morning daylight in Chelyabinsk and was observed from Sverdlovsk, Tyumen,Orenburg Oblasts, the Republic of Bashkortostan, and in Kazakhstan. Eyewitnesses also felt intense heat from the fireball.

The asteroid exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast at a height of about 15 to 25 km (9.3 to 16 mi).  It exploded with the generation of a bright flash, small fragmentary meteorites and a powerful shock wave. It released 20-30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Trail left by the asteroid

The object did not release all of its energy at once, with the total radiated energy of the fireball, which generated the main explosion, estimated to have emitted an energy equivalent to 90 kilotons of TNT, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

About 1,500 people were injured, two seriously. All of the injuries were due to indirect effects rather than the meteor itself, mainly from broken glass from windows that were blown in when the shock wave arrived, which came minutes after the superbolide's flash. Initially some 4,300 buildings, rising to over 7,200 such structures in six cities across the region were reported to have been damaged by the explosion.

With an estimated initial mass of 11,000 tonnes, and measuring approximately 17 to 20 metres across, the Chelyabinsk meteor is the largest object to have entered Earth's atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event and it is the only known meteor confirmed to have resulted in a large number of injuries.The object had not been detected before atmospheric entry.

GALACTIC ALIGNMENT!!!!

Galactic alignment is a historic event . It takes place once in about 26000 years!!! Can you believe it!!!

Its actually quite complicated but in short what exactly happens is that the earth , sun and the center of the milky way galaxy get aligned in the same line basically on the galactic equator which passes through the middle of the galaxy dividing it in two halves or lobes.

Our sun is one of the only heavenly bodies which lie on this equator!!

Its also the precision of the equinoxes.

Event time around 11.05 am on 21st of December 2012.(time may be wrong but date is correct).

Nothing much will be experienced except that the sun would be really very bright as never before.

People also say that on this day religious meditation effects the most. 

Also the solar flares , magnetic poles etc.. would be affected.

Please feel free to comment on this blog !! and let me know more about it!! 

Some funny quotes!!

1.  There was a young fellow from Trinity,
      Who took the square root of infinity,
       But the number of digits,
       Gave him the fidgets;
       He dropped Math and took up Divinity.



2.   In 1931, on Einstein's triumphant visit to the Mount Wilson Observatory, he first met Hubble.
Mrs. Einstein also came along.When she was shown around the mammoth observatory she was told that the gigantic telescope was determining the ultimate shape of the universe, and she replied nonchalantly, "My husband does that on the back of an old envelope".

Sixth launch in 2012 of Ariane 5’s

Yesterday evening an Ariane 5 launcher lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on its mission to place two telecommunications satellites, Eutelsat-21B and Star One-C3, into their planned transfer orbits.
 
Liftoff of flight VA210, the 66th Ariane 5 mission, came at 21:05 GMT (22:05 CET; 18:05 French Guiana). The target injection orbit had a perigee altitude of 250 km, an apogee altitude at injection of 35 786 km and an inclination of 2°.

The satellites were accurately injected into their transfer orbits about 28 minutes and 33 minutes after liftoff, respectively.

Ariane 5 VA210 liftoff

Eutelsat-21B will be positioned above the equator at 21.5°E. It will deliver telecommunications services, data services for corporate networks and governmental administrations, and IP access in Europe, North and West Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Star One-C3, to be positioned at 75°W or 84°W, will provide direct TV broadcast, telephone and long-distance domestic communications services for Brazil and South America.

The payload mass for this launch was 9216 kg; the satellites totalled 8250 kg, with payload adapters and dispensers making up the additional 966 kg.  

Flight VA210 was Ariane 5’s 52nd successful launch in a row since December 2002.