Nasa Technology News

The first solar eclipse of 2010 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in western Sagittarius. An annular eclipse will be visible from a 300-km-wide track that traverses central Africa, the Indian Ocean and eastern Asia (Espenak and Anderson, 2008). A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes eastern Europe, most of Africa, Asia, and Indonesia.

For the next two hours, the antumbra crosses the Indian Ocean, its course slowly curving from east-southeast to northeast. The instant of greatest eclipse occurs at 07:06:33 UT when the eclipse magnitude will reach 0.9190. At this instant, the duration of annularity is 11 minutes 8 seconds, the path width is 333 kilometers and the Sun is 66° above the flat horizon formed by the open ocean. Such a long annular duration will not be exceeded for over 1000 years (3043 Dec 23).

When the antumbra reaches Asia the central line passes directly between the southern tip of India and northern Sri Lanka (07:51 UT). Both regions lie within the path where maximum annularity lasts 10 minutes 15 seconds Quickly sweeping over the Bay of Bengal the shadow reaches Burma where the central line duration is 8 minutes 48 seconds and the Sun's altitude is 34°.

During analysis of four safe-mode events this year, engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have identified a vulnerability to the effects of subsequent events. They are currently developing added protection to eliminate this vulnerability while they continue analysis of the string of incidents this year in which the spacecraft has spontaneously rebooted its computer or switched to a backup computer.

The analysis identified one possible but unlikely scenario jeopardizing the spacecraft. This scenario would require two computer resets, each worse than any so far, occurring within several minutes of each other in a certain pattern.

Geoengineering might be a terrible idea, but it could also be the only option if efforts to slow carbon dioxide emissions maintain to fail, according to a new report by The Royal Society in London .

In both cases, scientist doesn't know what might go wrong with the proposed schemes--their scale is unparalleled. According to John Shepherd, who chaired the new Royal Society's study, "used irresponsibly or without regard for possible side effects, geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself."

he study analyzed the planned geoengineering alternatives to decide which are most likely to work without disastrous consequences. Notably, one loom advocated publicly by Energy Secretary Steven Chu--painting roofs white to reflect sunlight--didn't come out well.

Our work in cryptography is making an impact within and outside the Federal government. Strong cryptography improves the security of systems and the information they process. IT users also enjoy the enhanced availability in the marketplace of secure applications through cryptography, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and e-authentication. Work in this area addresses such topics as secret and public key cryptographic techniques, advanced authentication systems, cryptographic protocols and interfaces, public key certificate management, biometrics, smart tokens, cryptographic key escrowing, and security architectures. This year, the work called for in the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) has continued. A few examples of the impact this work has had include changes to Federal employee identification methods, how users authenticate their identity when needing government services online, and the technical aspects of passports issued to U.S. citizens.

A discovery about the moon made in the 1960s is helping researchers unlock secrets about Earth's ocean today.

Launched in 2002, the twin Grace Satellites map Earth's gravity field from orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the surface. They respond to how mass is distributed in the Earth and on Earth's surface -the greater the mass in a given area, the stronger the pull of gravity from that area. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean is determined by the amount of mass above it. Ocean bottom pressure is the sum of the weight of the whole atmosphere and the whole ocean," says Zlotnicki. When winds move water on the surface, ocean bottom pressure changes. When glaciers melt and add water to the ocean, the ocean's mass increases and bottom pressure increases, either at one place or globally.

However, as the mission progressed, Watkins explains, the science team has found better ways to process Grace Data. And by turning to a technique developed for the lunar world, Grace Researchers are getting the precise measurements of ocean bottom pressure they were hoping for.

In December 2012 and possibly many months before the Earth could become bombarded by massive solar flares which will knock out most all satellite electronics and blind the Earth for many years to come until more satellites can be built. But the greatest threat is from the CMEs or coronal mass ejections from the Sun. Solar flares have much less chance of hitting the Earth and their energy is much smaller than a coronal mass ejection. Coronal mass ejections are far more massive and carry much greater energy.

Mankind will be in the greatest danger in December of 2012. Before this time much of the satellites above the Earth will probably be damaged beyond repair and useless junk in space. But in December the planets align with the Earth and this is when the Sun could send a huge coronal mass ejection aimed directly at the Earth. The shading effect of the planets will be in line with the Earth and a shading effect will funnel any CME directly to Earth.

Development

The 450t Diciotti has a speed of 20kt and does not require refuelling up to 3,000nm. The ship is fitted with one emergency generator along with two Fincantieri FCP propellers. It has one 10m-long interceptor, a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB), one 5m service boat and one bow thruster. It takes up maritime patrol operations up to sea state 5 and has withstanding capabilities up to sea state 7.

The Maltese Navy replaced its Kondor Class offshore patrol vessel with Diciotti in 2005. The vessel, named P61, was modified to be capable of refuelling light and medium helicopters.

Features

The Fincantieri has also supplied the systems and components for propulsion of each of the vessels. Key elements of this include the Isotta Fraschini V1716T2MSD engines with power of 2,360kW. The company has also supplied the shaft lines and variable pitch propellers.

Saettias are an improved version of the Diciotti as they have a longer length and greater power. Iraq's version is 53.4m and has a breadth of 8.1m. Two shafts are used, instead of the original four, and the hull lines have been reformed to result in a reduced operating speed.