'NASA MESSENGER' spacecraft to crash into Mercury soon

Tech News - The "spacecraft will impact the planet at more than 8,750 miles per hour on the side of the planet facing away from Earth," NASA said in a statement on Thursday.

"Due to the expected location, engineers will be unable to view in real time the exact location of impact," a news agency reported.

Launched in August 2004, MESSENGER traveled 7.9 billion km on a journey that included 15 trips around the sun and flybys of Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury three times.

The spacecraft began orbiting Mercury in March 2011. The four- year mission was blessed with many scientific findings, including one in 2012 that provided compelling support for the hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant frozen water and other volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters.

It helped test many technological achievements, including the development of a vital heat-resistant and highly reflective ceramic cloth sunshade that isolated the spacecraft's instruments and electronics from direct solar radiation, vital to mission success given Mercury's proximity to the sun.

Source:  Auto News  and Gadgets Reviews India

 

View here : Daily and Weekly Horoscope

 

View here: Fun Facts

NASA teams up with Nissan to develop self-driving cars

Researchers from Nissan's US Silicon Valley Research Center and NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California have formed a five-year research and development partnership to advance development of autonomous vehicle systems and their commercial applications.

The partnership will focus on autonomous drive systems, human-machine interface solutions, network-enabled applications, and software analysis and verification, all involving sophisticated hardware and software used in road and space applications.

Researchers from the two organisations will test a fleet of zero-emission autonomous vehicles at Ames to demonstrate proof-of-concept remote operation of autonomous vehicles for the transport of materials, goods, payloads and people.

For NASA, these tests parallel the way it operates planetary rovers from a mission control center.

The first vehicle of this fleet will be testing at the facility by the end of 2015.

Source: Automotive News and Gadget Reviews India

Haunting images of NASA's abandoned launch sites revealed

The book titled 'Abandoned In Place' has stunning images of 16 space launch sites, research facilities and museums from US states like Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Utah, New Mexico and California, among others.

Most of these historic facilities are located on secure military or NASA facilities that limit its access to common people.

"By my estimates, half of the facilities I have photographed no longer exist," Miller was quoted as saying.

In 1984, Miller moved to Florida to teach photography and was subsequently contacted by an environmental engineer at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

This led Miller to spend a large part of his life travelling across the country to document the forgotten history of the space programme.

Source: Latest Photos and Latest Videos

Views LIVE Cricket Full Scoreboard