Majority of Planets

I feel a touch of fear when I imagine a part of the light emitted from the city can go into the sky and travel in the universe almost forever. Space extends infinitely, and there are an incredible number of stars and planets. It can be supposed that some planets can have lives. The recent astronomical study tells the probability of containing lives may be higher than expected.

In the recent observation, the Earth-sized planets are the majority in the universe.



According to the article of NASA's web site, there are about 46 billion planets similar to Earth in size in the Milky way galaxy. In the tremendous group, some of them are located in the habitable zone, the appropriate distance from the star to have liquid water. So the environment to create life might be not rare. We may be not isolated in space.

Some aliens of the planets might already have recognized the existence of us.


NASA Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets are Common
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-357

Demonstration of Spacecraft with REGO

ESA is developing a spacecraft to explore a comet. This spacecraft will directly land on the object.
Comets have the information of the origin of the solar system because they have never affected by chemical reactions like other planets. So it is valuable to explore them.

They present the work of the exploration. Although they use toy, it is very comprehensible.

3D display

Recently, 3D televisions are sold at the store, and many 3D movies can be seen. It was incredible several years ago. It is the symbol of the future technology. But specific glasses are necessary to watch them. The current 3D display needing glasses produces two images, left view and right view. So you can not watch 3D display when you are lying on the couch. This disadvantage may prevent people from buying 3D TV.

The next-generation of 3D TV will solve this problem. Some companies develop the new 3D which the user can watch the display without glasses.




The next one is more clear.



And this one is cell phone companies' display.



These displays are called "Glasses-Free 3D display" "Naked-eye 3D Display" or "Multi-viewpoint 3D display." Although these displays provides only horizontal images, it will be relatively easy to add vertical images. This technology has potential. In a few years, you may be able to watch 3D TV on the couch.

Doraemon's hand

Recently, the U.S. developed the specific robotic arm.
The shape is a ball, and everything can cling the hand.

Exploration with Cloud Computing

Did you hear of "Cloud Computing"?

Cloud computing is the system which enormous computers comprise. The computers in the system cooperate and work flexibly. The users can save their data in the storage server on the internet. They can also use applications served by other computers. Up to now, applications and data have been saved in the personal computer. With cloud computing, however, they do not have to install applications into their computers. That is, your PC works as just a browser. Because the system looks as if the users draw services from the cloud, the system is called "Cloud Computing." One of the advantages of cloud computing is that the users do not have to care about the management of the computers which provide services such as storage servers.


Recently, this new technology is supporting space exploration.

Mars Rovers Mission Using Cloud Computing
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-366&cid=release_2010-366&msource=2010366A&tr=y&auid=7288223

Actually, the scientist of the mission use cloud computing. This mission was planed to take several months; nevertheless, it has been working for 6 years. As a result, there is a tremendous amount of data from Mars, and they have to storage and analyze it. But a big scale of servers and the people who analyze the data are necessary. With cloud computing, they can save a lot of data without caring about the size of the storage because other people manage the storage servers. In addition, many people can work as analyzer of the data.

For example, NASA established the group of analyzers. The people in the group become "Martians" and analyze the data from Mars. NASA can gather many people, and general people can join space exploration. So both of them have advantages.
If you are interested in the group, you should join it.

Be A Martian!
http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome


Cloud computing seems to have more potentiality.

Another Earth was Found!

An exoplanet which is in the habitable zone was found.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/gliese_581_feature.html



This is the first discovery in the world!
On the surface of such a planet, there can be liquid water and life.
That kind of story is very exciting!


The system which was found is smaller than our solar system, but many planets consists it.
The number of planets of the system is big compared with other known systems.

Missing Piece

Phoenix, which is a lander working on Mars, apparently found the key substance.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-286&cid=release_2010-286&msource=09286&tr=y&auid=6934719

Phoenix found perchlorate. According to the web site, this substance can be a clue to the method to search life on Mars, and it might have been in the soil which Viking Mars lander caught.
Viking Mars lander might also have found it, but this lander could not prove the existence.
So, they call this discovery the missing piece.

It looks interesting.

Here is the picture of Phoenix for NASA site.

She Started Sleeping

Hey, what happened with Spirit, one of Mars Exploration Rovers?
The rover team can not get the response from Mars.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-252&cid=release_2010-252&msource=2010252&tr=y&auid=6731633

It is winter in the area where she is working. Apparently, she can not move because of cold.
Although they are designed to work for one or two years, they have been working for 6 years!!!
In several years, they have worked hardly.
In this picture, Spirit has a mobility trouble. Her left-front wheel is caught by sand.
Maybe, she became tired after her hard work.

Desert on Titan

Wow! I found this picture on NASA's web site!

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-251&cid=release_2010-251&msource=c20100729&tr=y&auid=6723160


The upside picture is the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and the downside picture is Namibian desert.
Their sand dunes look similar. Scientists says that the atmosphere of Titan causes this pattern.

I want to look at the colored surface of Titan.

Catenary

It has been long time since I posted last one.

I was thinking about catenary (Not only this one).
When I was a child, I thought the shape of a hanging rope was the parabola.
But, it is actually the other like called catenary.

Catenary is expressed like this.
y=a cosh(x/a)

The method how to derive the expression is explained here. (this page is Japanese)
http://aozoragakuen.sakura.ne.jp/taiwa/taiwaNch04/node48.html

Program Making Maps

I made a program to make azimuthal equidistant projection maps.


I made this image with it.



The program actually transforms equirectangular projection to azimuthal equidistant projection.

I'll explain how to code on my site.

Famous Charactor in Space

You can play a video game in space.
Pac-man showed up on a satellite.　Although today is April 1, this image is not fake!

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-103

This is Mimas, one of the satellites orbiting around Saturn. The colored image shows temperature of the surface. Yellow area is hotter than blue area. But, the surface is totally cold.

The size of Mimas is smaller than that of the Moon.
So, Don't worry. He cannot eat Earth.

European Space Exploration

I found a video about space exploration in Europe.



Their plan is cool.