SPACE
< PHYSICS
< SCIENCES IS SERIOUS
< matnac1981
To predict the result of a measurement requires (1) a model of the system under investigation, and (2) a physical theory linking the parameters of the model to the parameters being measured. This prediction of observations, given the values of the parameters defining the model constitutes the "normal problem," or, in the jargon of inverse problem theory, the forward problem. The "inverse problem" consists in using the results of actual observations to infer the values of the parameters characterizing the system under investigation. Inverse problems may be difficult to solve for at least two different reasons: (1) different values of the model parameters may be consistent with the data (knowing the height of the main-mast is not sufficient for calculating the age of the captain), and (2) discovering the values of the model parameters may require the exploration of a huge parameter space (finding a needle in a 100-dimensional haystack is difficult).
Go Discovery! It was October 23, 2007 at 11:40am EST when I had my first ride to space on Discovery. She’s beautiful… just sad that this will be her last voyage. Looking forward to climbing aboard the flight deck when Discovery arrives at the Space Station in November. (9-23-2010).
An Alcubierre Warp Drive stretches spacetime in a wave causing the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. The ship can ride the wave to accelerate to high speeds and time travel. The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric or Warp Drive, is a mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light" (although not in a local sense - see below). The key characteristics of the application of Alcubierre warp drives for time control and time travel are presented in the picture below. This is followed by more detail describing the effect below. Alcubierre Warp Drive Description
This is the message with color added to highlight its separate parts. The actual binary transmission carried no color information. The Arecibo message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope on 16 November 1974. [ 1 ] It was aimed at the globular star cluster M13 some 25,000 light years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony. [ 2 ] The message consisted of 1679 binary digits , approximately 210 bytes , transmitted at a frequency of 2380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 1000 kW . The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second.
Today marks the end of an era. Three decades of missions came to a close this morning as the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida after a 13-day trip to the International Space Station. All told, the 135 space shuttle missions have racked up more than 542 million miles in low earth orbit. Commander Chris Ferguson piloted the Atlantis to a safe landing at 5:52 a.m., and the spacecraft will soon undergo processing and decommissioning. It has been an emotional experience for residents and workers along Florida's Space Coast -- some 9,000 shuttle engineers, technicians, and other staff are being laid off, and the main tourism draw for the area has come to an end. Shown here, for one last time, is a look at a full shuttle mission, STS-135, the final flight of Atlantis.
