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Voyager 1 Sends Messages from the Edge
dalmozian writes "NASA's Latest News about the Voyager 1 is being run on Sci-Tech. The Voyager has passed into the border region at the edge of the solar system and now is sending back information about this never-before-explored area, say scientists at the University of Maryland. From the article: 'Voyager 1 and its twin spacecraft Voyager 2 are now part of a NASA Interstellar Mission to explore the outermost edge of the sun's domain and beyond. Both Voyagers are capable of returning scientific data from a full range of instruments, with adequate electrical power and attitude control propellant to keep operating until 2020.'" The proof of crossing the termination shock was covered earlier this year but now we can see the actual data.
For instance, on the last bit, we expected to see cosmic rays from the termination shock, because shocks accelerate particles. We see them. But they don't appear to be coming from the shock. They're coming from somewhere else that we don't know. We see another set of cosmic rays (with a different spectrum) that we don't understand at all - we just call them "anomalous cosmic rays."
Also, inside the heliosphere, Voyager 1 kept crossing magnetic domains (so a needle on a compass would swing back and forth) periodically. It was expected after the shock that those domain switches would keep happening, much much faster. That didn't happen. In fact, the domain switches stopped. We don't understand why. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
This is our only probe and our only example of a large astronomical shock. It's full of information about how the Universe produces such violent outbursts like supernovae, or gamma ray bursts. We need to keep studying this.
Let's /. the voyager!
I thought about something along those lines a while back. More specifically, with most space probes, what's stopping a malevolant third party from sending their own control transmissions to a probe, and making it do their bidding?
My guess is that they might include some precautions nowadays, but what of probes from a few years back?
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Both Mars rovers have exceeded expected life AND generated a lot of useful, intriguing data. That's a purty good record, too.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
Even if they did have the wheel that does do not offer an easy answer to how they moved the stones. You would have problems with things like bearings and road surfaces. Sliding is a much more probable method. Remember wheels are only effect on smooth level surfaces.
I believe that that many people think they may have used rollers of some kind if not pulleys.
I find it odd that the Egyptians seemed to have figured out how to work metal, quarry stone, have a system of writing and government but had never seen a log roll down a hill? I would bet they had wheels. They may not have used them to move the stones but I bet they had them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Couldn't they just open source Voyager and get a number of nations to fork the bill?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Even that is debatable, if the figures on 2003 UB313 are anywhere near correct. If it's as shiny as white snow, it's bigger than Pluto. If it's darker, it's bigger still.
...laura
Pivoting on fulcrums... using balancing, one man can do an awful lot of stuff with very little energy.
I can't find the original page, but check out the video on exn....
Backyard Stonehenge
Actually, another mystery has to do with who actually built them and when. Many Egyptologists claim they were made around 5000 years. But a geologist, Robert Schoch (and others) noticed while visiting the Giza plateau that some of the erosion was water-erosion rather than wind. I believe records show that there has not been that much water on plateau in the last 5000 years. In fact I *think* the evidence is that water at that level and quantity was not on the plateau since at least 10,000 years.
So, if the structures are there, and there is water erosion on them - and the water to do that erosion hasn't been there since 10,000, it indicates that the stuctures have been there at least 10,000 years.
Schoch may be a crackpot, or maybe he misinterpreted the erosion evidence. But, the best the egyptoligists throw back is, "it cannot have been built 10,000 years ago because we know it was built 5,000 years ago."
So, I would say, indeed, there is a mystery. Were they really built 10,000 years ago, and if so, who was there 10,000 years ago, and how did they do it?
Isn't the Earth-Moon system also technically a binary planet? And in that case, shouldn't we be referring to the third planet as "Earth-Moon" (or even more appropriately, "Terra-Luna")?
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
For being a site for nerds, I'm surprised that only you and I have heard of Dr. Schoch's findings and his subsequent run-ins with prominent Egyptologists.
For those unfamiliar with this man and his claims, go here.
Indeed, there is more mystery to the great pyramids than "how did they put such large stones in place?". Check it out.
damaged by dogma
The real mystery is more of an economic-political one. Why did such a large number of people essentially devote their lives to building monuments? How was it paid for? Did the pyramids possibly have some redeeming purpose other than as religious symbols? Why are pyramids on my money? How could leaders who have nothing better to spend money on than worthless make-work projects stay in power for so long?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogall ery-solarsystem.html
However, I suggest you google for "celestia" and run that instead for a mindboggling universe trip.
Sagan campaigned for that for YEARS, and the answer always was they were afraid the sunlight would damage the cameras. When they finally allowed it to happen, the planets happened to be in an almost straight line so 5 of them were all in one frame. That frame however is 6 meters wide and the earth is smaller than pixel.