Glass stemmed cup, Greek and Roman ArtMedium: GlassH.O….

Glass stemmed cup, Greek and Roman Art

Medium: Glass

H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/252998

Jar, double, Egyptian ArtMedium: Pottery, paintRogers Fund,…

Jar, double, Egyptian Art

Medium: Pottery, paint

Rogers Fund, 1912

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/554344

Handle, Ancient Near Eastern ArtMedium: IvoryRogers Fund,…

Handle, Ancient Near Eastern Art

Medium: Ivory

Rogers Fund, 1943

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/323987

Plaque with falcon-headed Re wearing crown of Upper and Lower Egypt

Plaque with falcon-headed Re wearing crown of Upper and Lower Egypt

Relief fragment

Relief fragment

Organic/inorganic sulfur may be key for safe rechargeable…

Organic/inorganic sulfur may be key for safe rechargeable lithium batteries

We have come a long way from leaky sulfur-acid automobile batteries, but modern lithium batteries still have some down sides. Now a team of Penn State engineers have a different type of lithium sulfur battery that could be more efficient, less expensive and safer.

“We demonstrated this method in a coin battery,” said Donghai Wang, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “But, I think it could eventually become big enough for cell phones, drones and even bigger for electric vehicles.”

Lithium sulfur batteries should be a promising candidate for the next generation of rechargeable batteries, but they are not without problems. For lithium, the efficiency in which charge transfers is low, and, lithium batteries tend to grow dendrites—thin branching crystals—when charging that do not disappear when discharged.

The researchers examined a self-formed, flexible hybrid solid-electrolyte interphase layer that is deposited by both organosulfides and organopolysulfides with inorganic lithium salts. The researchers report in today’s (Oct. 11) issue of Nature Communications that the organic sulfur compounds act as plasticizers in the interphase layer and improve the mechanical flexibility and toughness of the layer. The interphase layer allows the lithium to deposit without growing dendrites. The Coulombic efficiency is about 99 percent over 400 recharging discharging cycles.

Read more.

met-islamic-art: Fragment of Hanging, Islamic ArtMedium: Silk,…

met-islamic-art:

Fragment of Hanging, Islamic Art

Medium: Silk, cotton

Rogers Fund, 1923

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/447693

Inlay, hieroglyph

Inlay, hieroglyph

Dagger, Arms and ArmorMedium: Steel, jade, ruby, goldThe…

Dagger, Arms and Armor

Medium: Steel, jade, ruby, gold

The Collection of Giovanni P. Morosini, presented by his daughter Giulia, 1932

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/32259

Pair of Wheellock Pistols by François Du Clos, Arms and…

Pair of Wheellock Pistols by François Du Clos, Arms and Armor

Medium: Steel, gold, brass, wood, silver, mother-of-pearl

Rogers Fund, 1904

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/21927

Helm for the Joust of Peace (Stechhelm)

Helm for the Joust of Peace (Stechhelm)

Gorgeous uncoiled ammonite

A post shared by Vera (@volgafossils) on Oct 2, 2017 at 5:52am PDT

Gorgeous uncoiled ammonite

crystalworksgallery Gorgeous;#giant#ammonite from #Madagascar ….

A post shared by Crystalworks Gallery (@crystalworksgallery) on Oct 2, 2017 at 2:21pm PDT

crystalworksgallery Gorgeous;#giant#ammonite from #Madagascar . A #decorative #fossil from our #collection

Paleontology Museum, Milano (Milan)

A post shared by Andrea Musmarra (@andrea_musmarra) on Oct 6, 2017 at 10:32am PDT

Paleontology Museum, Milano (Milan)

Last common ancestor of apes was about the size of a gibbon

New research suggests that the last common ancestor of apes — including great apes and humans — was much smaller than previously thought, about the size of a gibbon. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, are fundamental to understanding the evolution of the human family tree. Gibbon [Credit: IZW/Linda Tanner]”Body size directly affects how an animal relates to its environment, and no trait has a wider range…

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Paleogenomic analysis sheds light on Easter Island mysteries

Easter Island is a place of mystery that has captured the public imagination. Famous for ancient carved statues and a location so remote it boggles the mind, the island presents a captivating puzzle for researchers eager to understand how and when it became inhabited, and by whom. Easter Island is known for these iconic Moai statues, as well as mysteries surrounding the inhabitants of the island 

[Credit: Terry Hunt]New…

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Newfoundland populated multiple times by distinct groups, DNA evidence shows

Indigenous people have been on the far northeastern edge of Canada for most of the last 10,000 years, moving in shortly after the ice retreated from the Last Glacial Maximum. Archaeological evidence suggests that people with distinct cultural traditions inhabited the region at least three different times with a possible hiatus for a period between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago. This schematic shows the settlement history of Newfoundland…

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5 NASA Photos That Changed The World “4.) Voyager’s…

5 NASA Photos That Changed The World

“4.) Voyager’s “Pale Blue Dot” snapshot. On February 14, 1990, after more than a decade of traveling away from Earth and on its way out of the Solar System, the Voyager 1 spacecraft turned its eye back towards home. Looking back at its journey, it was able to take snapshots of six planets, including the above image of Earth, from six billion kilometers away, making this the most distant photo of Earth ever taken.

Although this image was not part of the original mission plan, Carl Sagan’s idea made it to fruition, prompting him to later write the following:

‘That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. […] There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.’

Voyager 1 is now some 20 billion kilometers distant, as it continues its journey into interstellar space as the most distant spacecraft from Earth.”

It’s no secret that peering out into the distant Universe is best done from space, just as looking at our entire world is best done from that same vantage point. For all of human history until the mid-20th century, this was an utter impossibility. But thanks to advances in rocketry, and how NASA managed to put space technology together, we now have views of everything from our home planet to the deepest recesses of the Universe that have taught us lessons we never could have imagined. From the most distant galaxies to a distant view of Earth, all the way back to the youngest baby picture of the Universe ever taken, NASA has been with us throughout every step of the journey. As we peer ever deeper into the abyss and put not just the cosmic story but our place in it into perspective, it’s important to periodically look back at the beautiful but science-rich images that helped shape our view of what all this is actually about.

Come see the five NASA photos that changed the world, and see if your list of five would be any different. (I bet it would be!)

SlapbackMusic video for track by Young Juvenile Youth put…

Slapback

Music video for track by Young Juvenile Youth put together by Aphex Twin visual collaborator WEIRDCORE nails a 90s rave vibe with a decent tune to match:

Link

What are brown dwarfs?

In order to understand what is a brown dwarf, we need to understand the difference between a star…Astronomy & Astrophysics

2017 October 13 Under the Galaxy Image Credit & Copyright: …

2017 October 13

Under the Galaxy
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)

Explanation: The Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, stands above the southern horizon in this telephoto view from Las Campanas Observatory, planet Earth. In the dark September skies of the Chilean Atacama desert, the small galaxy has an impressive span of about 10 degrees or 20 Full Moons. The sensitive digital camera’s panorama has also recorded a faint, pervasive airglow, otherwise invisible to the eye. Apparently bright terrestrial lights in the foreground are actually very dim illumination from the cluster of housing for the observatory astronomers and engineers. But the flattened mountain top along the horizon just under the galaxy is Las Campanas peak, home to the future Giant Magellan Telescope.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171013.html

Air quality-monitoring satellite in orbit

Eurockot – Sentinel-5P Launch patch / ESA – Sentinel-5P Mission logo.

13 October 2017

Sentinel-5P liftoff

The first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere, Sentinel‑5P, has been launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

The 820 kg satellite was carried into orbit on a Rockot launcher at 09:27 GMT (11:27 CEST) today.

The first stage separated 2 min 16 sec after liftoff, followed by the fairing and second stage at 3 min 3 sec and 5 min 19 sec, respectively. The upper stage then fired twice, delivering Sentinel-5P to its final orbit 79 min after liftoff.

Sentinel-5P liftoff

After separating from the upper stage, Sentinel-5P deployed its three solar panels and began communications with Earth. The first signal was received 93 min after launch as the satellite passed over the Kiruna station in Sweden.

Telemetry links, command and control were then established by controllers at ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, allowing them to monitor the health of the satellite.

The launch and the early orbit phase will last three days, during which controllers will check the satellite’s key systems and configure it for flight in space.

ollowing this, a commissioning phase will check all elements of the satellite’s systems and the main instrument will be decontaminated. Once completed after a few weeks, the cooler door will be opened and the calibration and validation of Sentinel-5P’s main Tropomi instrument will be performed.

The mission is expected to begin full operations six months from now.

“Launching the sixth Sentinel satellite for the Copernicus programme is testament to the extensive competence we have here at ESA, from its moment of conception to well into operations,” said ESA Director General Jan Woerner.

Solar panel opening

“The Sentinel-5P satellite is now safely in orbit so it is up to our mission control teams to steer this mission into its operational life and maintain it for the next seven years or more.”

Sentinel-5P – the P standing for Precursor – is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere.

The mission is one of six families of dedicated missions that make up the core of Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network. Copernicus relies on the Sentinels and contributing missions to provide data for monitoring the environment and supporting civil security activities. Sentinel-5P carries the state-of-the-art Tropomi to do just that.

Sentinel-5P

Developed jointly by ESA and the Netherlands Space Office, Tropomi will map a multitude of trace gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and aerosols – all of which affect the air we breathe and therefore our health, and our climate.

Sentinel-5P was developed to reduce data gaps between the Envisat satellite – in particular the Sciamachy instrument – and the launch of Sentinel-5, and to complement the GOME-2 sensor on the MetOp satellite.

“Having Sentinel-5P in orbit will give us daily and global views at our atmosphere with a precision we never had before,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

Bringing air pollution into focus

“Our historic data records, together with the long-term perspective of the Copernicus satellite programme, opens the doors for generating datasets spanning decades – a prerequisite to understanding our ever-changing Earth. ”

In the future, both the geostationary Sentinel-4 and polar-orbiting Sentinel‑5 missions will monitor the composition of the atmosphere for Copernicus Atmosphere Services. Both missions will be carried on meteorological satellites operated by Eumetsat.

Until then, the Sentinel-5P mission will play a key role in monitoring and tracking air pollution.

Related links:

Airbus Defence and Space: http://airbusdefenceandspace.com/

Netherlands Space Office: http://www.spaceoffice.nl/en/

Eurockot: http://www.eurockot.com/

Khrunichev: http://www.khrunichev.ru/

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service: http://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA/ATG medialab.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Ewer with Horsemen Inscribed in Arabic with Good Wishes to its Owner

Ewer with Horsemen Inscribed in Arabic with Good Wishes to its Owner

Phenakite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral Beautiful and…

Phenakite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Beautiful and perfectly gemmy crystal on matrix from P. Cmolik’s ex-collection. Sold with a black removable resin base.

Locality: Mogok, Myanmar

Size : 2.0 x 1.5 x 1.3 cm

Photo Copyright © Le Comptoir Géologique

Geology Page

www.geologypage.com

Cavansite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral Excellent cavansite…

Cavansite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Excellent cavansite ball on stilbite cups floater.

Size: Poona, India

Size : 2.2 x 1.6 x 1.2 cm

Photo Copyright © Le Comptoir Géologique

Geology Page

www.geologypage.com

Uranocircite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral Exceptional…

Uranocircite | #Geology #GeologyPage #Mineral

Exceptional uranocircite crystal from P. Cmolik’s ex-collection, TOP !

Locality: Streuberg Quarry, Bergen, Bergen U deposit, Zobes-Bergen District, Vogtland, Saxony, Germany

Size : 2.5 x 1.8 x 1.8 cm

Photo Copyright © Le Comptoir Géologique

Geology Page

www.geologypage.com