Amateur footage of Challenger explosion found
Twenty-six years after the devastating explosion of the space shuttle Challenger during launch, new amateur footage of the event has surfaced, offering a new perspective of that tragic day.
The January 28, 1986 disaster was captured by then-19-year-old Jeffrey Ault with a Super 8mm camera while visiting Florida, and has now been made available to The Huffington Post.
It had been stored in a box at Ault’s home.
Dwarf Planets. (Pictures: Eris, Pluto, Makemake, Ceres, Haumea)
Pluto was first added as ninth planet of our solar system in 1930. In 2005 Caltech astronomer Mike Brown discovered Eris, an object about the same size as Pluto. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union decided that Eris, Pluto and Ceres were dwarf planet.
There are currently 5 officially recognized dwarf planets.
According to the International Astronomical Union a dwarf planet is:
A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. (via IAU)
Astronaut Ron Garan, aboard the International Space Station, snapped this image of Hurricane Irene as it passed over the Caribbean on Aug. 22, 2011. (Photo: Garan / NASA)
Russia and Europe to Send Man to Mars?
Ian O’Neill takes a look at the discussion of a joint mission:
Interestingly, one of the key deciding factors for the joint ESA/Roscosmos proposition appears to be the Russian Mars500 project. Mars500 is a 520-day simulated “mission” to the Red Planet being run by Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems. ESA is also involved in the project.
