[pedonbio]

That I can sit at my computer and download photo's from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn..   Here's a shot of the polar region of the Moon Enceladus with water geysers!   

I'm guessing the horizon line is Saturn... ?

[tommyboyddd]

^ Maybe its rings?

[prinz]

I'm guessing the horizon line is Saturn... ?

yes thats Saturn...The moon is close to the rings..In fact they think the geysers replenish the outmost ring..

[luvdemwhoppers]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1386759/Now-thats-sunthing-Solar-powered-plane-embarks-international-flight-Swiss-team-attempt-fly-Belgium.html

[tommyboyddd]

Since it came up in the Space Day thread, I'll nominate the Saturn V rocket as another modern marvel.  This is the magnificent bastard that saw the US space program through six manned lunar landings and two additional lunar orbit missions.

[pedonbio]

Since it came up in the Space Day thread, I'll nominate the Saturn V rocket as another modern marvel.  This is the magnificent bastard that saw the US space program through six manned lunar landings and two additional lunar orbit missions.

Gets my vote.

[prinz]

Since it came up in the Space Day thread, I'll nominate the Saturn V rocket as another modern marvel.  This is the magnificent bastard that saw the US space program through six manned lunar landings and two additional lunar orbit missions.

mine too! Still nothing can touch it in payload ..

[solvegas]

Today in 1883 the Brooklyn bridge opened to the publc. The grandaddy of all suspension bridges still in use and going strong. Some will say it is still too old to be called " modern " but, if historians are to be believed, the bridge is definitely of the Modern era.

[rtpoe]

A teeny bit over-rated from an artistic point of view, if you ask me... There are so many wonderful bridges in NYC...

The George Washington Bridge - when they light up the towers on the inside at night, they look like they are made of crystal....

The "Two Towers" of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, guarding the **103** to the harbor...

The sister bridges, the Whitestone and Throgs Neck, soaring like eagles over the upper East River....

The graceful arch of the Bayonne Bridge....

Heck, even the Hell Gate Bridge, with it's magenta coat of paint, is commendable....

[solvegas]

New York really does look better at night. One of the most amazing things I saw was when aproaching New York on the way to Newark airport. It looked like Jewels on black velvet, the skyline. This was back in 1976.

[pedonbio]

 

[luvdemwhoppers]

2 new elements added to periodic table

Posted by Marty Noble On Thursday, June 9th 2011 in World



Scientists have discovered 2 new elements. They don’t have names yet, but they already officially gained a spot in the periodic table, Associated Press reports.


THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BOOBS, IGNORE, DISREGARD, DO THAT "DELETE"

[rtpoe]

Elements 114 and 116...

http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/feature_new_elements.htm

The research teams will probably name them after something dumb, like the city or facility where they made the discovery (Darmstadtium). Or a person who is actually a physicist and has nothing to do with chemistry (Roentgenium).

Number 114 should be Daltonium (symbol: Dl) after English chemist John Dalton, who proposed the first modern atomic theory. He said that while all matter was made up of atoms, each element had its own *kind* of atoms. He proposed representing the atoms with patterned circles, and molecules with clusters of atomic symbols. That was quickly discarded as there were far too many elements to make it work, but when you build a model of a molecule out of black (carbon), red (hydrogen), and blue (nitrogen) spheres, you're referring to his idea.

Number 116 should be Berzelium (Bz) after Jöns Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist. In addition to identifying four new elements (his students found another two), he expanded on Dalton's atomic theory and came up with the idea of using one or two letters to represent each element.

But, since I have no pull with the IUPAC, they'll probably decide on something else.

[solvegas]

Yes, quite often, unfortunately, those giants whose shoulders we are standing on do not get the credit they deserve. 

[pedonbio]

Well, the older among us are more easily impressed with things that seem marvelous. Today one of the twenty or so remaining B-17s crashed outside Chicago:

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110613/ap_on_re_us/us_bomber_crash_3

It is a bit of a marvel that no one was killed, though the plane is gone. From a total production run of something over 25,000, there are fewer than two dozen left. I was reading the Wikipedia article about the principal Allied bomber in World War Two, and came upon the odd factoid that the B-17 was the first aircraft to have a preflight checklist. Boeing had built a prototype. Among other innovations, the prototype had locks to keep the control surfaces in place when the plane was on a field and the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, before its second flight, the ground crew forgot to release the locks. After takeoff the pilot couldn't maneuver the plane and it crashed, killing the pilot and co-pilot. Not an auspicious beginning for a very tough, serviceable craft.

My mother used to rivet the wing assemblies together. It was high-tech stuff for its time. Boeing Assembly Plant #2 was on the west side of Highway 99, the main north-south highway between San Diego and Juneau. The air field from which they took off for delivery was on the east side. The plant finished about one plane an hour. Several times a day the plant workers would stop traffic, push what they had across the highway, and go back to work. They would usually get a test flight for an hour or so, then take off.