Sun will be nearest to Earth tomorrow

News Bullet, Press Trust of India, New Delhi: The Sun will be nearest to our planet tomorrow, giving an opportunity to astro-enthusiasts to carry out several experiments. "At 5:53 AM tomorrow (Perihelion Day), the Earth will be at its nearest point from the Sun. The distance at that time is 147 million km," Planetary Society of India General Secretary N Sri Raghunandan Kumar said today. Every January, the Earth is at perihelion, the closest from the Sun for the year and in July it is at aphelion,

the farthest to the Sun for the year,  he said. The word perihelion comes from the Greek words "peri" (meaning "near") and "helios" (meaning "sun"). All planets, comets and asteroids in our solar system have elliptical orbits. Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the Sun-- a perihelion and an aphelion, he said. Explaining the reason why the temperature does not rise on Perihelion Day even when the sunlight is more, Kumar said, "There are many reasons for it. Blame it on the tilt of the Earth's axis. Actually, our seasons are determined by the tilt of the Earth and not by how close the Earth is to the Sun. Sunlight raises the temperature of continents more than it does of the oceans." Astro-ethusiasts are expected to gather at Jantar Mantar observatory and carry out experiments related to the distance between the Earth and the Sun Source: News Bullet

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Massive asteroid to fly by Earth - NASA

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7.11.2011, 11:47, A NASA spokesman said on Monday that a massive asteroid will make a fly-by on November 8, posing no threat to Earth.He said that the asteroid is about 500 meters wide and will hurtle past Earth at a distance of about 300,000 kilometers away. Tags: World, asteroid, Sci-Tech, News, Читать далее, Source: Voice of Russia. 

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NOAA's Aquarius: An Undersea Home For Scientists, Divers And Even Astronauts

RTSea: Where would you like to spend a faraway vacation? A remote chateau in France? A cozy cabin in the high Sierras? Well, here's one that is on my wish list: over 60 feet below the surface of the waves, off the coast of Florida,  nestled  in  the  Aquarius undersea  research station. Currently, the 

only permanent undersea habitat and research facility, Aquariusis owned and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) and operated by the University of North Carolina Wilmington. It has been home to a wide array of scientists and researchers since it was first deployed in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary in 1993. One of the advantages of an undersea habitat is the ability to extend the amount of bottom (time spent diving and conducting research outside). If you were to dive from the surface to 60 feet, you would have only about one hour of dive time before you would find yourself having to deal with decompression (waiting to discharge accumulated nitrogen) as you surfaced. However, by staying below in a pressurized facility, a scientist could spend a full working day outside, for up to 10 days or more. At the conclusion of the mission there would then be an extended period of time spent decompressing before stepping on dry land, but the ability to spend  days  at  a  time  underwater is 

extremely valuable for many types of scientific ocean studies.Additionally, a facility like Aquarius is ideal for testing how men and women can function in confined environments like they would encounter in deep space missions. NASA just concluded its latest deep space training exercise, NEEMO 15, which stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation. With NASA's future deep space missions, like ones being considered to the moons of Mars, Mars itself, and even to an asteroid (calling Bruce Willis), it is important to know how astronauts can function effectively and independently, with little or no contact with mother Earth. Medical emergencies, software and hardware repairs, and of course, long-term isolation - all need to be considered and studied.Read Full: NOAA's Aquarius: an undersea  home  for  scientists,  divers  and  even  astronauts

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Are we all aliens?

Washington : Life, after all, could well have originated in space, at least in theory. Scientists have detected the building blocks of DNA in meteorites since the 1960s, but were unsure whether they were created in space or resulted from the contamination by terrestrial life. But now, NASA-funded researchers have found more evidence that meteorites can carry DNA components created in space. The latest research has indicated that certain nucleobases - the building blocks of our genetic material - reach the Earth on meteorites in greater diversity and quantity than previously thought. The discovery has added to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules. In the new work, scientists analyzed samples of 12 carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA nucleobases.  Source: Hindustan Times. Image: https://www.flickr.com

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