Resources, June 2007

Did You Know?

• Despite Jupiter’s enormous size, it spins faster than any other planet.  A day on Jupiter is about ten hours long.
• Venus’s clouds aren’t made of water vapor, like Earth’s. Instead they’re made of poisonous sulfuric acid.
• Like Mercury, Venus’s day is longer than its year. The unique thing about Venus is that it rotates backward compared to the other planets. On Venus, the Sun rises in the west. No one knows why this is so.
• Unlike the solid layers of Earth, the layers of the Sun are made of swirling gases. Its surface looks like boiling tomato soup.
• The light of a full moon has long been associated with evil and disaster. The word lunatic comes from the Latin name for the Moon, luna, because people believed that the rays of the Moon when full caused insanity.
• Astronauts’ footprints will stay in the Moon’s fine dust for millions of years, since the Moon has no wind or rain to erase them.

(Quoted facts from Kenneth C. Davis' book, Don't Know Much About Space)

Books

DVDs

The Crab Nebula

"The Crab Nebula is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.

This composite image was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. It is one of the largest images taken by Hubble and is the highest resolution image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula."*

Go Observe, Learn, and Stargaze!

Into Cyberspace at Warp Speed!

Launching Wisdom

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.

(Quote of Robert Goddard (1882-1945),
US physicist & pioneer rocket engineer, from Quotationspage.com)

I grew up in a single-parent family which had just immigrated to this country from Latin America so I had language difficulties, cultural barriers and financial difficulties to overcome. From where I grew up, my dreams really seemed far-fetched and unrealistic. Most people around me did not offer a lot of encouragement to me either. Fortunately, I was self-motivated enough to work extremely hard and earn a four-year academic scholarship to Syracuse University where I earned a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering. After graduation, I was extremely fortunate enough to land my first engineering job at NASA. I have since then earned a master of science degree in aerospace engineering from USC and am currently working on my Ph.D. degree at Stanford University.... I am still working very hard to realize my ultimate dream to become an astronaut. A few years ago I was chosen as a finalist for the Astronaut Candidate program and was invited to go to Johnson Space Center-Houston and try out with a group of about 100 finalists. Although I did not make the final cut that year, it was an unbelievable accomplishment and experience for me. It was a dream I thought I never would come close to achieving.... My advice to you is to never, ever give up on your dreams no matter how unrealistic they may appear to be. You must always believe in yourself and be committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve even the impossible. Remember you owe it to yourself to find your special talent and this will be your special gift to the world.

(Quote of Fanny Zuniga, NASA Aerospace Engineer, from Women of NASA Web Site)

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

(Quote of Albert Einstein (1879-1955),
US Physicist, from Quotationspage.com)

I principally believe that everyone should strive to the best of their abilities to adopt a Renaissance approach to life if they can. It is the worst pathway a person can take to narrow down their life for the sake of conforming to some ridiculous stereotype of what is feminine or intellectually or socially acceptable. Having a life where you are a combined artist, an athlete and a scientist is essential for reaching your full potential as a human being…. In addition, success is not straightforward and you may have many apparent failures before you find your niche. Life is meaningless unless you spend it doing something you are passionate about. And life is too short and there is far too little of it for you to waste doing anything else.

(Quote of Emma Bakes, NASA Astrophysicist, from the Women of NASA Web site)

* Credits:

Martian Soil Magnified and facts, courtesy of NASA, JPL, and USGS. For more info:
http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=1243

Crab Nebula and facts, courtesy of NASA, ESA, and J. Hester and A. Loll of Arizona State University. For more info:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/star/pulsar/2005/37/

Twin Galaxy and facts, courtesy of NASA, JPL, CalTech, and STSCI. For more info:
 http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=2625

The wallpaper (and its description) on this page is modified from an image courtesy of NASA, ESA, and M.J. Jee and H. Ford of Johns Hopkins University. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, it shows a dark ring of matter between galaxy clusters. The original image is below. For more info: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/galaxy/2007/17/