What Supersonic Looks Like Yahoo News/Reuters The breaking of the sound barrier is not just an audible phenomenon. As a new picture from the U.S. military shows, Mach 1 can be quite visual. This widely circulated new photo shows a Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Alaska June 22, 2009 as it executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. The visual phenomenon, which sometimes but not always accompanies the breaking of the sound barrier, has also been seen with nuclear blasts and just after space shuttles launches, too.
Sonic Black Hole Traps Sound Waves Discovery Channel
A black hole created by Israeli scientists won't destroy Earth, but it could make our planet just a little bit less noisy. Using Bose-Einstein condensates, the scientists created a black hole for sound. The new research could help scientists learn more about true black holes and help confirm the existence of as-yet to be discovered Hawking radiation. "It's like a black hole because waves get sucked in and can't escape," said Jeff Steinhauer, a scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology and the corresponding author of the article recently posted on the ArXiv.org pre-print Web page. "But in this case we use sound waves instead of light."
How NASA Technologies Impact Daily Life
NASA.gov NASA has launched an interactive site that allows users to discover some of the many NASA technologies that positively impact everyday life. "NASA at Home" and "NASA City" take users on an illustrated tour of the commercial technologies and products that trace their origins to NASA's investment in space and aeronautics research and development. Visitors can scroll more than 100 technologies grouped by themes such as home, airport, grocery store, sports arena, hospital, public safety and manufacturing. After entering an area, users can experience the impact NASA has on their lives and find descriptions of such technologies as temperature-regulated clothing from materials designed for astronaut suits and gloves, wireless headset telephone technology pioneered to transmit the first words from the moon, fire-resistant paint and steel coatings from NASA's heat shield technology, and remote-controlled ovens based on technology used aboard the International Space Station.
Refurbished Hubble Ready to Resume Mission of Exploration NASA.gov Thanks to the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission, the Hubble Space Telescope can continue pushing the limits of what we know about our universe for years to come. Thanks to new gyros, new batteries, new thermal blanketing and new science instruments, Hubble is poised to peer deeper into the cosmos than ever before. Spectacular images and data should start flowing from Hubble in about three months, after controllers have checked out and calibrated each of the observatory’s instruments and systems.
After that, Hubble will continue to do what it’s done for 19 years now: making discovery after discovery, pushing the limits of what we can see and what we know about our universe, rewriting textbooks and amazing us with spectacular, amazing images like nothing we’ve ever seen.
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Imagine being granted one wish in support of your greatest passion. That’s what the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Prize makes possible. In this video, the SETI Institute's Jill Tarter elaborates on her TED Prize wish: "I wish that you would empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company." Using a growing array of radio telescopes, she (and all of us) can listen for patterns that may be a sign of intelligence elsewhere in the universe. More...
Physics website American Physical Society (APS)
APS has developed Physics with students in mind. Every week, APS publishes almost 400 articles, each being of interest
to a large or small group of physicists.In Physics we select a few outstanding
articles each week, and invite an expert to write an introductory
piece, called a "Viewpoint", that explains the context and background
of the selected article. This helps non-specialists and students to
understand and appreciate the new research article. If you get
interested and want to read the original journal article, we also make
it free to download from the Physics website. Go to the Physics website...
AIP launches Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) American Institute of Physics (AIP)
AIP is pleased to announce its newest journal: the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE). To complement this online-only journal, AIP has developed a website with components that go beyond the standard journal webpage, including: (i) a blog—in which insightful commentary on news, policy, and research related not just to the journal, but to renewable and sustainable energy in general, can be found, (ii) a list of top stories—culled from major newspapers, magazines, and websites, these stories cover the most important news happening in the field, and (iii) interviews (audio, video, and text) with researchers, newsmakers, and other persons of interest to the field of basic renewable and sustainable energy research. More...
Take a Tour of Titan The Cosmic Log
Pictures from the Cassini orbiter have been processed to provide a psychedelic flyover of Titan, Saturn's largest and most mysterious moon. But wait ... there's more: You also can watch moon shadows dance over Saturn's rings, a phenomenon that occurs during a season that comes only once every 15 years.
The virtual flight comes courtesy of Cassini's radar-mapping instrument, which can see places hidden from human eyes. Titan is shrouded by a thick layer of orangish smog, but the radio waves cut right through the atmosphere to map the mountains, valleys and dune fields below. More...
Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon Telegraph.co.uk
Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather centre's resources, four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere.
Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year. Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said: "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."
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Bouncing Jets Physics Central
Oil is slick but did you know it can also bounce? Physicists at the University of Texas at Austin Center for Nonlinear Dynamics poured a stream of oil into a rotating container of oil. Instead of just mixing with the rest of the oil in the container, the stream gradually pulled up and jetted into the air. The researchers found that the stream of oil carried a thin layer of air with it into the moving oil bath. The jet glided along the thin layer of air and ramped into the air. More...
Bold New Missions to Jupiter and Saturn Space.com
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are pushing ahead with proposals to send ambitious new missions to explore Jupiter, Saturn and the many moons that circle both planets, the two space agencies announced Wednesday. "It's just a remarkable effort that I see," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division, in a teleconference with reporters. "The communities have really come together on both sides of the pond." More...
Sticky tape generates X-rays Naturenews
Christmas could bring with it a new hazard as you wrap your gifts – X-ray-emitting sticky tape. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown that simply peeling ordinary sticky tape in a vacuum can generate enough X-rays to take an image—of one of the scientists' own fingers (see videos). "At some point we were a little bit scared," says Juan Escobar, a member of the research team. But he and his co-workers soon realized that the X-rays were only emitted when the kit was used in a vacuum. "We don't want to scare people from using Scotch tape in everyday life," Escobar adds.
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Astronaut Buzz Aldrin erects a solar wind experiment on the moon after Apollo 11's historic landing on July 20, 1969. Click on the image for a high-resolution view.
The breaking of the sound barrier is not just an audible phenomenon. As a new picture from the U.S. military shows, Mach 1 can be quite visual. This widely circulated new photo shows a Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Alaska June 22, 2009 as it executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. The visual phenomenon, which sometimes but not always accompanies the breaking of the sound barrier, has also been seen with nuclear blasts and just after space shuttles launches, too.
A black hole created by Israeli scientists won't destroy Earth, but it could make our planet just a little bit less noisy. Using Bose-Einstein condensates, the scientists created a black hole for sound. The new research could help scientists learn more about true black holes and help confirm the existence of as-yet to be discovered Hawking radiation. "It's like a black hole because waves get sucked in and can't escape," said Jeff Steinhauer, a scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology and the corresponding author of the article recently posted on the 
NASA has launched an interactive site that allows users to discover some of the many NASA technologies that positively impact everyday life. "NASA at Home" and "NASA City" take users on an illustrated tour of the commercial technologies and products that trace their origins to NASA's investment in space and aeronautics research and development. Visitors can scroll more than 100 technologies grouped by themes such as home, airport, grocery store, sports arena, hospital, public safety and manufacturing. After entering an area, users can experience the impact NASA has on their lives and find descriptions of such technologies as temperature-regulated clothing from materials designed for astronaut suits and gloves, wireless headset telephone technology pioneered to transmit the first words from the moon, fire-resistant paint and steel coatings from NASA's heat shield technology, and remote-controlled ovens based on technology used aboard the International Space Station.
Thanks to the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission, the Hubble Space Telescope can continue pushing the limits of what we know about our universe for years to come. Thanks to new gyros, new batteries, new thermal blanketing and new science instruments, Hubble is poised to peer deeper into the cosmos than ever before. Spectacular images and data should start flowing from Hubble in about three months, after controllers have checked out and calibrated each of the observatory’s instruments and systems.
After that, Hubble will continue to do what it’s done for 19 years now: making discovery after discovery, pushing the limits of what we can see and what we know about our universe, rewriting textbooks and amazing us with spectacular, amazing images like nothing we’ve ever seen.
