Science Fun

This past weekend was a split with Saturday being the better of the two days – temperature in the mid 30s and a nice, sunny day – good day for outside activities such as skiing or ice skating (several of the communities in the area had their winter festival days). Sunday was cloudy in the morning and by around 1:00 pm, the precipitation started. Here in New England, it depended upon where you lived as to what happened and how much you received. Where I live, we had about 5 inches of snow, starting out as light and then a heavy wet snow came later in the day with a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour. Some areas received a mix of rain and snow or all rain. Residents in Maine reported in about 25 inches of snow.

As the storm exited Sunday night and into Monday morning, the winds whipped up and chugged along through most of the day on Monday. Also, the day was mostly cloudy with on and off snow showers with no accumulation, although it did keep the roads on touch side for icing conditions. Tuesday morning woke up to a bright sunny day and the morning low of 17 and the high for the day only reached 24F. The winds were gusting around 5 mph in the morning, however, by afternoon they had died down. The cool crisp morning air and clear visibility made for some good viewing for our astronomical friends in search of Comet Lulin, which was at its closest point to Earth at 38 million miles.

Wednesday turned out to be a very nice day! The sun warmed up the morning temperature from 1 above 0 to around 26 for the daily high. A light breeze was present in the afternoon with a few fair weather puffy clouds. Thursday had a morning low of 24 and it reached 37 for the high. The day started out with sun, then clouds with a brief ice pellet shower and then by early afternoon the sun was out.

Friday bring us to the end of another week. Today it warmed up to 51F and remained cloudy for the day, the rains held off until about 6:00 PM. It rained on through the night and cooled off to the mid 30s. Saturday turned out to be mostly sunny with the temperatures in the mid 30s. As I send this post off, all eyes are on what is to come for Sunday – forecasts are looking at another winter storm – accumulation and storm intensity are unknown at this time.

Drop a comment and share what the weather has been like for you this week!

In our first post on the Rocket, we looked at the definition and started a brief history of the rocket prior to World War II.  We will now pick up our discussion with the V-2 rocket, which was responsible for making the German rocket program a success. 

The production of the V-2 rocket began in 1943.  This rocket had a range of about 185 miles and 2,205 lb (1,000 kg) warhead with an amatol (highly explosive charge made from TNT and Ammonium Nitrate) explosive charge.  The V-2 rocket had an altitude height of 90 km.  Thousands of these rockets were fired at Allied nations during the war, and while they could not be intercepted, their guidance system and single conventional warhead meant made an impact, although it did not affect the course of the war.  2,754 people were killed and 6,523 were injured during the time the V-2 rocket was used.  This rocket proved the lethal use and potential for the guided rocket as a weapon. 

Following the end of World War II, the United States, Russian, and Brittan were competing for members of the German rocket program.  The United States was far more successful than their counterparts in capturing Germans (many from the Nazi party) and bringing them to the United States through the program, Operation Paperclip.  Von Braun worked with scientists to help with research and building of the United States rocket program.  The V-2 Rocket was re-designed and became the Mercury Redstone Rocket. 

Rockets were also used by U.S scientists, led in part by Von Braun; in performing atmospheric research in high altitude conditions, radio telemetry, cosmic ray studies, and for experimentation and development that led to the breaking of the sound barrier by the Bell X-1. 

In the Soviet Union, they continued in their development programs with further expansion of the German V-2 rocket under Sergei Korolev, to become R-1, R-2, and R-5.  Later, the German design was abandoned and a new series of engines designed and built by Glushko were used in the first ICBM (Inter continental Ballistic Missile) rocket, the R-7.  This rocket, the R-7 was used to send Sputnik into orbit as well as to carry Yuri Gagarin into space.  Rockets became extremely important for military usage, in particular for transport of the nuclear weapon. 

In our next post in this series, we will move into the early days of the ‘Race for Space’ and the continued developments of the rocket for manned space exploration.  Visit www.historychannel.com ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket, and http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/rocketry/index.html for a continued study in the history of the rocket.

On this day in history, two significant events happened with the usage of Radar.  First, On February 26, 1935, the first radar system is demonstrated in England, tracking a Royal Air Force bomber.  The invention of radar proved crucial to Great Britain’s defense in World War II. 

The second event occurred on February 26, 1938 when radar was installed on the American passenger ship New York.  This event proved that radar was a good use for ocean going vessels and the following year, the first battleship equipped with radar was placed into service. 

Radio Detection and Ranging (Radar) was developed in the early 1900s when scientists and engineers invented a uni-directional ranging devices.  Radar technology continued to improve through new designs and refinements in the 1920s and 1930s, leading up the first early warning and detection networks just prior to World War II. 

The basic concept of how radar works is that a transmitter sends a radio signal out, it bounces off an object and is returned to the same point as the original signal.  This out and back trip is then calculated and or displayed in various formats.   

The very first radar, which never made it into production, was invented by Christian Huelesmeyer in 1904.  His simple device was a spark gap that was aimed with an antenna and it would send out a signal, which would travel out to about 3km.  The signal would bounce off a ship and would this ‘reflection’ would return and be picked up by a receiving antenna and sound a bell.  This early device was designed to aid ships in avoiding collisions.  In foggy and stormy weather, the device could be rotated to check for ships around the area.  Naval operations were not that much interested in this and device and it did not make a go. 

Today, one of the most popular forms of radar that everybody has seen is Doppler Weather Radar that you see on the nightly news weather reports.  This special antenna resides in a white ball (looks like a huge golf ball) and it rotates 360 degrees.  As the antenna rotates, it is transmitting a radio signal.  This signal bounces off snow, rain, ice crystals, even insects and is returned to the receiving antenna.  These radio waves are electronically converted into images to show precipitation and type, as well as the intensity.  Doppler also shows the frequency change in the returning radio waves, the computer and software that processes this frequency change to show wind changes and directions. 

Radar technology has come a long way since it was first discovered in the early 1900s.  There are many types and variations that we did not cover in this short posting.  In a future post, we will branch off and review and discuss specific types of radar and the applications it is used for.  What applications can you think of that use radar? 

The mystical magical snowflake!  What makes up the snowflake?  Every winter we get an abundance of this stuff we call ‘Snow’!  What makes up snow?  The snowflake!  What makes up a snowflake?  Well, that is the topic of today’s post and we hope you will enjoy it. Snow, a form of precipitation, in the formation of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from the clouds (no two flakes are the same).  Snow is composed of small ice particles and is granular with a soft structure that forms the ice crystal 

Snow crystals form when super cooled miniscule droplets of moisture freeze.  The snow crystal is a microscopic piece of dirt that is carried aloft by updrafts. As the crystal travels through the air, it attracts moisture; then as it reaches the super cold layers in our atmosphere, it freezes and forms into a hexagonal shaped crystal.  This little crystal forms tiny arms that lock into adjacent crystals and form snowflakes as they fall back to earth.  The snow crystal geometric shape is determined by the temperature and the humidity at the point of its formation.  

The snowflake is a unique creature, and according to scientists, there are no two alike.  The snowflake is made up of between two and two hundred snow crystals.  Heavier snowflakes are formed when the temperature is closer to the freezing point.  These snowflakes have higher moisture content and tend to be the larger flakes.  The drier flakes are light and fluffy, as they do not have high moisture content.  The snow depth is greater with the dry and lighter flakes.

Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow for the creation of the snowflake in laymen’s terms and for more technical analysis and a nice gallery of images, visit www.snowcrystals.com.  Snowflake and crystal images are from the image colletion at www.snowcrystals.com

At 38 million miles away (160 times further than the moon), Comet Lulin is approaching Earth for a close encounter. The comet has been for several weeks now, been viewable by the naked eye, as it closes in on Earth, it continues to get brighter. Today, the comet will be the closest and then the distance will begin to widen as it gets further away from our planet.

An astrophotographer in Arizona has reported that the comet’s vivid green atmosphere (the green color is attributed to cyanogen and diatomic carbon gas in its atmosphere) is about three times as wide as Jupiter, and its dusty tail extends 1.5 million km into space. The astrophotographer commented that that the comet is so big that it no longer fits into the telescope field of view.

This morning, the comet was at a magnitude around +5.5 and was located a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is visible to the naked eye and most likely Lulin was, depending upon your location – many astronomers use binoculars or telescopes to view the comet. There is a gallery of images available at www.spaceweather.com, and Sky and Telescope offers a complete profile of the comet track and profile available at their site: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/35992534.html

Comet Lulin is remarkable not only for its beauty, but also for its discovery. The discovery of the comet is a collaboration between the Chinese and the Taiwanese.

Image – Jack Newton

Resources:

Location Chart

http://spaceweather.com/comets/lulin/findercharts_feb20_mar21.gif

3D Orbit Model

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007+N3&orb=1

Ephemeris (Orbital Elements)

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2007N3.html

Science Daily Release

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090220075316.htm

Some storms have a mixture of elements that make up the event! The majority of the time, these elements are related to one another such as thunder and lighting, wind and rain, wind and snow, etc. There are occasions when we have the unusual event that has all but the kitchen sink thrown in, and even then, it is possible to have the kitchen sink if the storm is a twister and it ravaged a house.

This event happened in 1967, and per the historical files of the Weather Channel, a blizzard dropped 4 inches of snow in two hours on this day (February 23, 1967) in downtown Chicago, IL. This storm event had lightning, thunder, 40 mph winds, near zero visibility, and a temperature of 14 degrees. This same storm system also was responsible for marooning some basketball fans in the gym overnight in Ogden Dunes in northwest, IN due to winds to 82 mph. You never know what Mother Nature may toss out of her hat…