Galileo's one day (more) delay

I have work in the Galileo's Gstb-dsf project a long time a go. At that time, many times have said that Galileo was about to be launching satellites, but the Giove delays I understand that we should wait. I've been waiting for today during years and I can wait for one day more.

But I don't like to talk about this delays and the big amount of money that they would cost, apart to the cost of the system itself.

Don't wanna forget Glonass (Rusian) and the Compass project (Chinese-European) , but my knowledge is more about GPS and GNSS (Galileo). What's the difference between this two systems? All this satellite systems lives in the medium earth orbit (about 20000km from earth surface), how can they be different? The name says the difference: The Gps is a positioning system, and Galileo is made for navigation. Motion is the difference, and this difference is given by precision.

The mathematics behind it are the same in all this systems. But how this precision is given? By the time... Yes, the precision given by the location systems is given by how precise is the clock in the satellite and the information provided in the broadcast of the signal. Part of this signal can be emitted encrypted to only allow to certain users to access to the complete time stamp.

The other difference between gps and galileo is the orientation of the service. Gps is a military project from the US, because of that the main goal of the system is the availability for military applications, and the civilian service is a secondary thing. The precision of the system, then, depends of which type of user you are. But Galileo is civilian from scratch, even this doesn't mean open for every one.

Galileo will have an open access signal, accessible by every one like gps, with some better presision. But there will have some levels more:

• Commertial: Paying a price, the user will have the right for a controlled access for commercial applications who require more more than the basic, and a warranty on the service.
• Regulated: Paying another price, it's oriented to high security applications who cannot suffer interruption or distortion due to its security reasons.

Don't be to paranoid, the Regulated is thinking in civil aeronautics. Having the main improvement in the vertical precision and the 99% of availability warranted. I hope emergency location beacon systems will have access to Regulated by default, not having devices to some safety and some better, more expensive.

Update 20111021: liftoff!

Kona's Gallaxy

This week, I shared with some friends the Astronomy Picture of the Day (there's a very nice Spanish translation). I like to share a bit more this picture.

Look the people at the other side of the galaxy, they are small from this perspective. Realize also: there is a bench close to the galaxy center! Assuming that this bench can be 2 meters long, who big this garden can be?

They have a few more pictures in the site of the garden, but the link with I enjoy much more is from the Spanish translation to a zoomed atlas of visible universe from the Earth.

Extremophile

After the land of the Phoenix in the Mars arctic, with the first results of the high salinity of the ground, I read some articles about the water is not the only one restriction to allow life.

In out planet we have places where the life exist under extreme conditions. This type of life we call it Extremophile. Working in a synchrotron I am curioused, specifically with the life that is able to be in extreme radiological conditions. I don't know how a bacteria can protect and repair what the radiation breaks, but what about the parasitoid wasp? Wikipedia says this complex life can support a hundred times more of radiation than the humans.

A few a go I read about the survivance in space conditions of the Tardigrade. It's impressive how this lifes can survive to the void with high radiation doses.

Milky Way center candidate

Continuing with the reading of Nature's last week (September, 4th), in a letter about candidate of our galaxy center I'm thinking about how hard can be to deduce who is the center of the galaxy.

Looking on another galaxy, with a good perspective on it, can be possible to approach to know around which structure the galaxy turns around. But when we are looking from in side this can be not so easy. As an example, the center of a galaxy is so briliant, but in a clear night from the Earth the center of the Milky way is not visible. We need to study it in the infrared spectrum, for example, because of the objects that are in the middle who block the visible light.

When we look to the center of the galaxy we are looking to the past because it's far from here, and the light expends 24k8 light years, to travel the 7k6 parsecs. Looking Andromeda we have a prespective that shows us objects from a similar time, but from inside our galaxy the light of diferent objects arribes here from different historyc moments.

By the way, our candidate as a center is Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole that can have 4 million solar masses, with in an space that can be 45 AU. (realize that all the planets in our solar system are closer to the sun than this distance).

recicling photographed conference slides

I'm reading in the Nature of last week (September, 4th) about the nervousness of some scientist with the colleges that goes to a conference and takes photos with digital cameras and uses the data for their own publications.

I cannot definitely understand this position. The first ones, the lecturers are presenting some data in public and they can have the title of the first of publish it. At the same time this can be used as a base of the next publication upgrade, or to find any mistake that exists.

In this second possibility, imagine that in this PAMELA presentation they announce the dark matter detection (implies existence) with a mistaken proves that no one in the conference can study because of their obscurity. I'm not saying they should did mistakes, I'm saying not other scientist can check it. Yes, they like to review with some other colleges chosen by themselves, but this doesn't mean publish.

If they don't trust a 100% to their study why they publish it? Because no one else publish it before but saving the dress if they made a mistake? Oh, please! This have more sense in politics, or some where than the only important think is naming. There is no price for the second who discover dark matter, I understand it. But what happens if another scientist team is closer to the verified results and publish it; will this ones says 'they copy it from us' with an ultra-hidden camera in the conference?

Actualization: Reading more about this column in Nature, I understand the problem is more because the copyright of many publications than specifically because the scientist doesn't like it. Many times the slides are published after the conference, but the problem can come when the journals decides which data can be publish out them. How is the owner of the investigations?

Neutrinos, from to be detect to use to detect

The neutrino was theorized in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli and detected form the first time in 1956. During this long time since now this particle have some veil of uncertainty because of its really small mass, it was not much affected by big masses. Also this particle doesn't interact much with the rest of the matter then is able to pass along out planet without contact. Also because of its small mass this particles travels at speeds close to the light.

Really big structures has need to detect this avoids particle. In order to find some of this not much interactions a huge detector is required Super-Kamiokande. A huge pool of water, in a dark place down to the Earth surface, with a large number of photo amplifiers who multiplies any small interaction.

This can change if a core planet study project go ahead. Right now we are using seismic waves to study the structure of this big mass where we live (relatively big, do not compare it with Jupiter, neither the sun, and in any case with Antares). The seismic waves interact with all the matter in the middle to the core (it means noise), but neutrinos has the other extreme characteristic they will interact a little with the core, but more that the rest of the panetary matter.

Do not forget that the elementary material of the ringworld absolves the 40% of the neutrinos...

Interstellar trips only for science-fiction

A few days a go I was reading about warp speed and how travel fast than the light can be understand that it is under contradiction with relativity.

Science-fiction uses objects that the physics theories says as possible according with other theories that are also unverified. But is nice when you read scifi books or swatch tv shows how interstellar trips can be possible or also intergalactic. But my pleasure in a well when I read the humans, perhaps, never travel far from the solar system. The tech advances can be at a light years distance...

But also we can handle the hope that we are talking from an age like the Ancient Greek says there is no possible to jump higher to the sky...

Nice view of the shuttle

I found via rss a really good video of the shuttle from a camera in a commercial fly:

Take a look in another place

For a long time I read many things (It doesn't mean I understand it) about the supersymmetry as an explanation of many of the biggest questions in physics. The supersymmetric particles can explain the problem of the matter quantity in the universe. This problem is simple, the universe has to have more matter than we saw to be like we saw.

Today I read a post about a different way to find this undiscovered matter. Many time I read about astrophysical ways to try to see something in the sky. But this time is different, we like to try to create this matter as a collision result in the way to know if this can exist in this universe.

Deeper read about this type of matter, I think, can be the Wikipedia's article about neutralinos. Also there is in spanish a really good writter, who wrote about the amazin world of the particles.

Binary pulsar system

Our telescopes saw many dual star systems, here two star are orbiting between then their mass center. This two starts also rotates faster when the distance between is smaller, and this is one way to try to detect the gravitational waves specially if this pair is massive.

Also the sky have objects called pulsars, neutrons start that rotates fast and emits x-ray from the magnetic poles and can be thought to be like the lighthouses used to guide the pilots in the sea (close to the coast).

The Esa has a satellite to observe the x-ray sources called XMM-Newton. Last October this satellite saw something really interesting: a binary pulsar system. Interesting specially because the close impact effects of the emissions of each pulsar to the magnetosfere of the other. Have a nice read.

How can be a sun aurora?

Reading this post about the end of the Ulyses program and also watching the fantastic good bye video I have a question for the air. I saw boreal auroras and its really fantastic, and difficult to photograph (also because it moves).

Our Sun has also a magnetic field called the heliosphere who protects the elements in the Solar Sistem from the interstellar medium. Also, as the video shows some particles can decay down to the Sun poles, as the solar wind does with us, and it may produce a similar show.

Supernova birth

I'm only one more of the ones who write something about the casual photo taked from a supernova in the explosion moment.

Artistic view (for sure, our telescopes cannot see like that)

As we can read in many places (many) some astronomers, that was studying a past supernova, found in the acquisition an abnormal x-ray emissions and they doesn't become from their object under study. this becomes just from the neighborhood.

Is really difficult to record an explosion, ask this to the war reporters. You never know where it will explode. As I read in a book, record and explosion so far doesn't give you the image, so close you will not have health to explain it. If you think 16.5 light years is far, I prefere to not be closer.

Present and past, simultaneous

Did you ever thought to see an evolution in time needs to wait this time? People from the university of Heidelberg (in Germany) saw a pulsar under five different time perspectives at the same time. How to understand this? The explanation is the gravitational lensing.


In 10th April 2008 Nature you can find a short article about this and also in the HubbleSite you can find a good images about this. The source article is from The Astrophysical Journal, but only the abstract is accessible.

As far as I understand, the point is the galaxy in the middle. It curves the light from the quasar that cannot come directly to as (because something is in the middle) an it came from five different paths. The light travels different distances to arrives here, and it means each ways has differences on time scale. They arrive here at the same time, but then they need to start the trip on different moments.