November 8th, 2009, 5:00 am by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
Tracy Caldwell, a Cal State Fullerton graduate and former UC Irvine researcher, will leave Earth for six months of service aboard the International Space Station on April 2, says NASA, which has formally made her part of “Expedition 23″ to ISS. Caldwell, 40, will serve as a flight engineer, doing everything from helping to maintain the orbiting outpost to helping conduct science experiments. She’ll travel to ISS aboard a Soyuz TMA-18 rocket with cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko. The crew is scheduled to dock with space station on April 4, and Caldwell will remain at the outpost until September 2010, NASA says.
Caldwell, a chemist, will be making her second visit to space station, only this time she’ll be staying for months. She served as a mission specialist on space shuttle Endeavour, which helped expand ISS during a brief visit in August 2007. The flight was literally the realization of a dream for Caldwell, who says she used to sit in the Mojave Desert as a child and wonder what it would be like to travel in space. Shortly after she was chosen for astronaut training in 1999, Caldwell said that she not only wanted to fly aboard the shuttle but someday serve on ISS. She’ll do that next spring, becoming one of six crew members on an outpost that orbits about 220 miles above Earth.
Caldwell told us in January, “It’ll be exciting to go back up there because the space station has grown so much. We’ve added big modules. They’re huge inside. You can almost get lost in them. When you think about all of the hands that have gone into making this well, well, it is one of the most magnificent accomplishments of our planet.”
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Animation of the past week’s earthquakes in O.C. and the rest of Southern California
Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • Cal State Fullerton • Endeavour • International Space Station • NASA • space shuttle • Tracy Caldwell • UC Irvine | Post a Comment »
November 7th, 2009, 4:43 pm by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
It was seismically quiet week in and around Orange County, with the region mostly recording microquakes that weren’t felt by many people. One tiny shake occurred on an unidentified fault not far from Disneyland. Another happened east of Rancho Santa Margarita. And there was a hiccup on the Newport-Inglewood fault, in the Newport area. The notable action occurred to the south, along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a series of small quakes led to a 4.0 shaker. Both sides of the border have been twitching for about a week.
To review where all of the quakes happened, click here to go to an animation of the week’s seismic activity.
Live Southern California quake map
Tiny earthquake near Disneyland
Join the OC Register Wiki and help add information to the quakes section.
Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • Earthquake news and research • earthquake | Post a Comment »
November 7th, 2009, 12:00 pm by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
Apparently, I made this week’s contest too easy. Many readers knew that this photo shows the Maldives. The first two readers to correct identify the photo were Robert Wilson and OhioGirl. I’ll be sending them high quality science books.
Tiny quake near Disneyland | Forecast: Above average rain for O.C.|Life through a Microscope slide show |Earth from Space photos
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Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • NASA • science | 29 Comments »
November 5th, 2009, 7:46 pm by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
A magnitude 1.9 microquake occurred at 3:19 p.m. near the intersection of Cerritos Avenue and South Brookhurst Street in Anaheim, roughly four blocks from Disneyland, the U.S. Geological Survey says. The earthquake, which doesn’t appear to have been felt, happened 16 miles deep, which is unusually far down for a shaker in Southern California. The quake occurred on an unidentified fault that’s located between the Whittier and Newport-Inglewood faults. The shaker was too tiny to have any impact on Disneyland. But the 5.4 Chino Hills quake in July 2008 briefly caused Disneyland to shut down its rides to determine if any damage had been done. (Click map to enlarge.)
Live OC quake map | Microquake east of RSM | Look for Taurid meteor fireballs tonight
>> Join the OC Register Wiki and help add information to the quakes section.
Sneak preview of our gallery of weather photos taken by readers. Truly beautiful
Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • Astronomy and astrophysics • Disneyland • earthquake | 9 Comments »
November 5th, 2009, 5:54 pm by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
LOOK, UP IN THE SKY: The meteors will appear to come from Constellation Taurus. Map courtesy of Spaceweather.com
Most people have heard of the annual Perseid meteor shower, which reaches its peak during a night-long period every August. But what about the Taurid meteor shower, which occurs when Earth passes through tiny debris shed by Comet 2p/Encke? Are you familiar with it? In many ways, the Taurids, which begins a week-long peak period tonight, is more interesting than the Perseids. As Spaceweather.com notes, “At most, only about 5 Taurids per hour streak across the sky, but what they lack in number they make up for in dazzle. Taurid meteors tend to be fireballs, very bright and slow. Look for them falling out of the constellation Taurus during the hours around midnight.” Some astronomers refer to the Taurids as slow, which they are, compared to some other meteor showers. But the Taurids is caused by debris from a comet strikes Earth’s upper atmosphere at about 37 miles per second, says NASA. Put another way, the meteors could cover the 41 mile length of the Orange County coastline in just over one second.
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Posted in: Ain't that interesting? • astronomy • meteors • NASA • Taurids | 9 Comments »
