As part of its continuing program of education and outreach, NASA has released 22 printable models of NASA and European space probes, asteroids, and planetary landscapes for the hobbyist and space enthusiast.
The 3D models are available from the NASA website for free and are printable on any desktop 3D printer using plastic filaments. It’s the latest in a long tradition of NASA science, technology artwork made available to the public going back to its founding in 1958.
The world celebrates the number pi on Pi Day: March 14, 2015 (3/14/15). Here’s how pi is used in science and engineering.
If you like numbers, you will love March 14, 2015. When written as a numerical date, it’s 3/14/15, corresponding to the first five digits of pi (3.1415) — a once-in-a-century coincidence! Pi Day, which would have been the 136th birthday of Albert Einstein, is a great excuse to eat pie, and to appreciate how important the number pi is to math and science.
Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle. Any time you want to find out the distance around a circle when you have the distance across it, you will need this formula.
Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, has a vast underground ocean of salty water, NASA scientists announced Thursday (March 12). The ocean on Ganymede was discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet. The spacecraft was approximately 61,000 kilometres from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet’s gravity at about 4:39 a.m. PST (7:39 a.m. EST) Friday.
“Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director at JPL. “Now, after a journey of 4.9 billion kilometers and 7.5 years, Dawn calls Ceres home.”
In addition to being the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet, Dawn also has the distinction of being the first mission to orbit two extraterrestrial targets. From 2011 to 2012, the spacecraft explored the giant asteroid Vesta, delivering new insights and thousands of images from that distant world. Ceres and Vesta are the two most massive residents of our solar system’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The UK-made Beagle 2 lander has been found on the surface of Mars more than a decade after it was thought to be lost forever.
The 2003 launch was the result of a collaboration of UK academics, whose nifty lander rode to the Red Planet aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft. By December 19 it had reached its destination and was released from the spacecraft.
“It was due to enter the atmosphere at about 02.51 on the 25th December,” said Mark Sims, professor of astrobiology and space instrumentation at the University of Leicester. But nobody heard from Beagle 2 following its ejection from the Mars Express and it was presumed lost. Sims said he had “given up hope” of ever knowing what happened to the lander.
Now, thanks to images taken by Nasa’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), we have at last found the Beagle 2’s final resting place. Images show that it did indeed make it to the surface of Mars and even landed where it was expected to, at the Isidis Planitia basin. For 11 long years, the Beagle 2’s remaining team members have been scouring images captured by HiRISE for signs of their design. That work—and unbelievable patience—has paid off, because the images tell a story of how exactly the lander got to where it is today.
The activities embedded in the programs make the subjects more engaging for the students as well as the teacher.
Trent Perry, Teacher