'Beautiful Earth' Combines Live Music, American Indian Perspectives with NASA Science and Technology

Composer Kenji Williams couples awe-inspiring NASA satellite imagery with innovative violin and electronic melodies in his "Bella Gaia" program. The Visitor Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., hosted a live performance of Bella Gaia on April 19 as part of a NASA educational program called "Beautiful Earth."

Beautiful Earth combines Williams's Bella Gaia show with interactive talks by scientists and American Indian educators, and hands-on workshops for students. Williams's performance of Bella Gaia (which translates to "Beautiful Earth)" provides an emotional element to the science education program.

"I would love for people to feel a real and personal connection with the science of the living Earth," Williams said. "Without this emotional connection, stewardship of our resources will be difficult to develop in any long-lasting way. A 'culture of ecology’ is what is needed to create pervasive change, and this is what I would like audiences to feel with their minds and hearts."

NASA's Beautiful Earth showcases Earth's systems and highlights many NASA missions studying Earth. The show on April 19 focused on the water cycle and featured video of American Indians from the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes undertaking a "water walk," a sacred ceremony that celebrates the connections between water and life. The production also included imagery of forest fires in the Amazon and time-lapses of Arctic ice.

Williams created Bella Gaia to inspire people and give them a glimpse into the rare vantage point that astronauts have when they are in space.

"I was inspired by a meeting and conversation with NASA astronaut Mike Fincke several years ago," Williams said. "He told me of his profound transformation the first time he saw the Earth from space, from the International Space Station. I was so inspired by his story that it got me thinking, 'How could I bring this transformative experienced that astronauts commonly have, to those of us who can't go to space?'"

This "transformative experience," which author Frank White called the Overview Effect, represents a change in how some returning astronauts conceptualize Earth, one that overshadows manmade boundaries by a sudden awareness that Earth operates as a borderless, interconnected whole.

In this Beautiful Earth program, Williams played violin over electronic music against a multimedia backdrop of NASA scientific visualizations and views of Earth from space. Interactive talks featured several speakers, including astronomer Jim Rock, of the Native American Dakota tribe, and Thorsten Markus, chief of Goddard's Cryospheric Sciences Lab.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/beautiful-earth.html

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NASA Celebrates Earth Day 2012 in the Washington Area

NASA is taking part in the celebration of Earth Day's 42nd anniversary on the National Mall in Washington from April 20 through April 22. The agency's involvement includes three consecutive days of activities and exhibits open to the public. Additional activities are scheduled at nearby NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The "NASA Village" on the National Mall will contain activities and exhibits in three tents that highlight the use of NASA science and technology to advance knowledge and awareness of our home planet. The area is located one block west of 12th Street and the Smithsonian Metro station entrance.

The Earth and Activities tents will host exhibits and hands-on demonstrations throughout the weekend. Activities include the Weather Versus Climate game, a "Go Green" environment challenge, and Earth Science Pursuit. The Green Theater will feature large satellite images and presentations by NASA scientists and others.

On Earth Day, April 22, a performance stage hosted by the Earth Day Network will feature presentations by NASA along with a wide variety of entertainment.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/ed-2012-dc.html

NASA's WISE Mission Sees Skies Ablaze With Blazars

Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to find thousands more.

Blazars are among the most energetic objects in the universe. They consist of supermassive black holes actively "feeding," or pulling matter onto them, at the cores of giant galaxies. As the matter is dragged toward the supermassive hole, some of the energy is released in the form of jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. Blazars are unique because their jets are pointed directly at us.

"Blazars are extremely rare because it's not too often that a supermassive black hole's jet happens to point towards Earth," said Francesco Massaro of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology near Palo Alto, Calif., and principal investigator of the research, published in a series of papers in the Astrophysical Journal. "We came up with a crazy idea to use WISE's infrared observations, which are typically associated with lower-energy phenomena, to spot high-energy blazars, and it worked better than we hoped."

The findings ultimately will help researchers understand the extreme physics behind super-fast jets and the evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sky in infrared light in 2010, creating a catalog of hundreds of millions of objects of all types. Its first batch of data was released to the larger astronomy community in April 2011 and the full-sky data were released last month.

Massaro and his team used the first batch of data, covering more than one-half the sky, to test their idea that WISE could identify blazars. Astronomers often use infrared data to look for the weak heat signatures of cooler objects. Blazars are not cool; they are scorching hot and glow with the highest-energy type of light, called gamma rays. However, they also give off a specific infrared signature when particles in their jets are accelerated to almost the speed of light.

One of the reasons the team wants to find new blazars is to help identify mysterious spots in the sky sizzling with high-energy gamma rays, many of which are suspected to be blazars. NASA's Fermi mission has identified hundreds of these spots, but other telescopes are needed to narrow in on the source of the gamma rays.

Sifting through the early WISE catalog, the astronomers looked for the infrared signatures of blazars at the locations of more than 300 gamma-ray sources that remain mysterious. The researchers were able to show that a little more than half of the sources are most likely blazars.

"This is a significant step toward unveiling the mystery of the many bright gamma-ray sources that are still of unknown origin," said Raffaele D'Abrusco, a co-author of the papers from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "WISE's infrared vision is actually helping us understand what's happening in the gamma-ray sky."

The team also used WISE images to identify more than 50 additional blazar candidates and observed more than 1,000 previously discovered blazars. According to Massaro, the new technique, when applied directly to WISE's full-sky catalog, has the potential to uncover thousands more.

"We had no idea when we were building WISE that it would turn out to yield a blazar gold mine," said Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is not associated with the new studies. "That's the beauty of an all-sky survey. You can explore the nature of just about any phenomenon in the universe."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20120412.html

Sector 33 Puts You in the Control Tower

Angry birds in space may be OK, but angry pilots in the sky are another thing altogether.

NASA in January released an educational game called Sector 33 in which the goal is to keep imaginary pilots and their airliners happy by remaining a safe distance in the sky from each other using math and problem-solving skills.

In the game, available free of charge for Apple iPhone and iPad devices, the player acts as an air traffic controller by guiding airplanes through a sector of airspace spanning Nevada and California.

The player can adjust the planes' path and speed to safely reach certain spots in the sky in the fastest time possible, while at the same time keeping the planes a specific distance from each other.

So far the app has been a big hit with the online community, earning a top rating of five stars with more than 60 percent of those offering customer reviews.

"Users of Sector 33 are telling us that they love the app, it's fun yet educational, and makes gamers think on their feet as they try to solve the various air traffic control problems built into the game," said Gregory Condon, manager of NASA's Smart Skies Education Project based at the Ames Research Center in California.

Sector 33 is based on Smart Skies Line Up With Math, an educational software title developed under the direction of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and distributed in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/sector33.html

Tackling the Global Water Challenge

In a speech on March 22, 2012, marking World Water Day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to improve water security. The U.S. Water Partnership is a public-private partnership that seeks to mobilize U.S.-based knowledge, expertise and resources to improve water security around the world, particularly in those countries most in need.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver joined Secretary Clinton and representatives of other U.S. government and private sector entities for the World Water Day event at the U.S. Department of State in Washington as the partnership was announced.

As one of the new members of the Partnership, NASA brings a variety of expertise, ingenuity and resources to the challenge.

In response to widespread famines in Africa in the 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created an early warning system to provide timely information about drought and famine conditions. The system has since evolved into a worldwide Famine Early Warning System Network that uses data from NASA and others to classify food insecurity levels and alert authorities to predicted crises. NASA's data on long-term changes in rainfall, vegetation, reservoir height and other climate factors enhance USAID's ability to accurately predict food shortages and disseminate these findings to a broad audience around the world.

In April 2011, NASA and USAID signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their joint efforts to overcome international development challenges such as food security, climate change, and energy and environmental management. The agreement formalized ongoing agency collaborations that use Earth science data to address developmental challenges, and to assist in disaster mitigation and humanitarian responses.

Another NASA-USAID partnership, SERVIR, is bringing Earth observation information to local decision makers in targeted areas of the world to address threats related to climate change, biodiversity, and extreme events such as flooding, forest fires, and storms. SERVIR, which comes from the Spanish word meaning "to serve," features web-based access to satellite imagery, decision-support tools and interactive visualization capabilities to put previously inaccessible information into the hands of scientists, environmental managers, and decision-makers.

Regional SERVIR hubs are located at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama, the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development based in Kenya, and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal. SERVIR was developed by researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA’s Earth observation research capabilities in space are also contributing new knowledge to tackle the global water challenge. In 2009, researchers using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite showed that groundwater in northern India had been disappearing. The research, lead by Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., showed that the water was being consumed primarily to irrigate cropland faster than the aquifers were being replenished by natural processes.

Data on the depletion of groundwater around the world using GRACE observations is also contributing to public awareness of the global water challenge. Starting today, World Water Day, graphic displays of changes in global groundwater supply appear on a huge electronic billboard in New York City’s Time Square.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/world_water_day_2012.html

NASA Quiet Sonic Boom Research Effort Ends With a Whisper

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center recently completed NASA’s latest quiet sonic boom research study at Edwards Air Force Base.

The Waveforms and Sonic boom Perception and Response, or WSPR, project gathered data from a select group of more than 100 volunteer Edwards Air Force Base residents on their individual attitudes toward sonic booms produced by aircraft in supersonic flight over Edwards.

NASA and industry are studying technology that will reduce the noise and annoyance associated with sonic booms to the point where aircraft flying over populated areas at supersonic speeds do not disturb the peace, and aviation and governmental authorities may consider lifting prohibitions. But before the current restrictions on supersonic flight over land can be changed, much research is needed to understand how individuals and communities react to low-noise sonic booms.

WSPR's primary purpose is to develop data collection methods and test protocols for future public perception studies in communities that do not usually experience sonic booms. The base's unique flight-test airspace puts Edwards residents in a position to experience loud booms regularly, so their reactions to low-noise booms will be a valuable guide for future work in sonic boom perception and response.

"Understanding the study participants' responses to sonic booms is very important to NASA," said Larry Cliatt, Dryden’s principal investigator for the research effort. “We’re pleased with their participation.”

Participants used a standard questionnaire to provide information every time they heard any sonic boom while at home. In keeping with the "there's an app for that" age, some participants responded using smart phones with apps supplied by the WSPR project. Other study participants used a web-based application, and some used paper forms.

For the supersonic flight portion of the research that occurred between Nov. 4 and Nov. 18, NASA F/A-18 aircraft flew specific flight profiles to generate booms, while NASA researchers monitored the flights, noting precise times and actual boom intensities recorded by ground instruments installed in the Edwards' base housing areas. Dryden conducted 22 flights during the test period, yielding 82 quiet sonic booms and five of normal intensity. The softest WSPR project boom was recorded at .08 pounds per square foot (psf) overpressure, while the loudest registered well within the normal range at 1.4 psf.

NASA Dryden takes great care to ensure that loud sonic booms do not impact residential communities, using preflight weather balloons and sonic boom analysis before every sonic boom research flight.

Dryden's partners in the WSPR effort include NASA’s Langley Research Center, Wyle Laboratories, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Fidell Associates Inc., Pennsylvania State University and Tetra Tech. The cooperation of Edwards Air Force Base personnel was crucial to the study’s success.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/Features/WSPR_research_complete.html

How Communication Influences SEO

Search Engine Optimization is one process that influences the position of a website in the search engines and the ideas we use to get it done is kept fresh with necessary updation. Every single SEO strategy is just a part but, when you try concentration on one and let go others, it means that you are missing the bigger picture.

We keep stressing on a few factors like quality content or latent semantic indexing for getting a website optimized properly and the ultimate aim behind it is to communicate well with the visitors or the potential customers. When you have a website with quality expert grade content and related products that interests the visitors, it means that you website is all set to be ranked pretty well.

Communication is one simple idea that is being followed by us for ages but, we still have problems in making effective communication. The main problem lies in encoding an idea or a message in a format that is easily understood by the other person.

As internet acts as the most influential intermediate between people these days we are in a position to use it as a platform to efficiently communicate to prospective customers. We know that search engines are not our intended receivers but we are supposed to satisfy this intermediary so that our message can reach the target. Search engines are frequently being rationalized so that they become more capable of decoding the meaning of our web pages and at the same time decode the search queries of the users so that they can play their role effectively by giving appropriate search results.

Here, our job as a communicator is to make sure that we keep our web pages easy for Search Engines to understand as well as user friendly. If we are capable of sending the right format of message that is clear-cut for the search Engines to grab, it means that you have done your job. Sounds easy, right? Anyway, hope you don’t miss to deal with the final part of this communication problem… Search Engines are not our final receivers and you will have to put necessary efforts to make people click on to your page, and make business with you.

Now, what is the use of being in the first few ranks and don’t communicate well with your visitors? You don’t get what you want- The business! When you are successful with the first part, you are half way there. Only when your website is presentable and looks like it has got stuff in it, you are through with the final part.  Your job as a webmaster is to provide enough support content about your product or process so that your customers feel it’s worth buying from you when there are thousands of providers out there. When you want business, you will have to build confidence in your customers about what you sell.

Getting feedbacks and keeping in touch will help you a lot in building your business whilst pulling it to the next level. When you get a sale it means you are successful about communicating with one person but, what about the others who had visited your page and had not made business with you.  This ring a bell saying that your way of communication has a few hitches and the best way to prevail over this is to follow the feedback method.

When you feel that your website is well equipped with what customers need and the one thing that you are missing is an effective communication with the search engines, you should get it done by the professionals. Search Engine Genie (SEG) is one qualified professional firm that you can rely for expert Search Engine optimization, promotion, marketing and ranking solutions.

Ready to Launch! A New Website Sharing Space Station Benefits For Humanity

When the International Space Station was first imagined, the idea was to create an unprecedented research platform to support microgravity investigations for the benefit of all humankind. That goal is now a reality, and researchers have not waited for completion to begin working on studies to build on our knowledge of science and technology in space. Because of this, we can already see some amazing breakthroughs.

So just what has the space station yielded to humankind? You can discover the benefits for yourself, thanks to another international collaborative effort. Working together, the station partners launched the International Space Station Benefits for Humanity website on March 1. This site enables readers to look at the global progress resulting from the knowledge and technologies of the orbiting laboratory.

Camille Alleyne, International Space Station assistant program scientist with NASA, explains the goals behind this new effort. "The website is a great resource for the general public and other stakeholders," Alleyne said. "It communicates the value of the International Space Station as a unique scientific and educational platform that enables discoveries that benefit all humanity."

The site will be featured on all of the partner agency websites, in both English and the applicable native languages. This includes the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA; the European Space Agency, or ESA; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA; the Russian Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos; and NASA. The stories contributed were the work of writers from around the world, representing each of the agencies whose collaboration took the station from conception to reality.

"Working with the partners on this initiative was truly an extraordinary experience," Alleyne said. "This effort is a continued demonstration of the unprecedented achievement in international cooperation, which is one of the great values of the International Space Station."

Prompted by the International Space Station Multilateral Control Board, the site will feature stories that raise awareness to the station benefits already making a difference in our world. These accounts will be updated as additional accomplishments come to light and vary in topic from education to technology to telemedicine advancements.

"Users will find stories about station research that benefits humankind in the areas of human health, Earth observations and global education," Alleyne said. "Vaccine development research, station-generated images that assist in disaster relief and farming and educational projects that inspire future scientists, engineers and space explorers are some examples of research benefits. The resulting knowledge of these benefits will be extended to more countries and people for the betterment of humanity. They will be used to improve the quality of people's lives globally."

The site focuses primarily on findings that are making their way into general use here on Earth. For instance, doctors are already operating with space station robotics technology when they employ the neuroArm to perform delicate surgical procedures. There are also products with the potential for worldwide impact that are on the horizon, such as vaccines to inoculate against salmonella and even advanced delivery methods of microencapsulation for cancer treatments. These are just some of the developments derived from the work done aboard the space station highlighted as part of this humanitarian website.

As many efforts provide valuable conceptual and scientific data, however, researchers will continue to build upon the ever-growing body of space and microgravity knowledge. For results from specific investigations performed on the space station, readers can also visit NASA’s International Space Station Program Science Results Web page.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/humanities_website.html

Space Station Team takes on 'EPIC' occasion

Expedition 30 Flight Engineer Don Pettit, operational in singing group with the International Space Station team in Houston’s Mission Control Center, inspects hardware as he install a set of Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC) processor cards in one of seven primary computers aboard. Anyone who has ever been concerned in a computer improve knows that they can be complex, and that you have to take your time, be cautious, and go step-by-step if you want to be winning.

That’s precisely what the journey 30 crew and International Space Station team in Mission Control are responsibility as they fit a set of Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC) computer cards in the seven main computers on the station.

EPIC is the shorthand name the team is using to explain this improve of the main processor cards. The seven computers, which are officially called Multiplexer/Demultiplexers, are second-hand for Guidance, Navigation, & Control; Command and Control; and Payload, or experiment, control. The innovative cards have faster processors, more memory, and an Ethernet connection for data output. Astronauts use laptop computers to control station systems from side to side these main computer.

Europe's automatic move Vehicle is incorporated on Ariane 5

The third European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for open by Arianespace was installing atop its Ariane 5 at the Spaceport, mark one of the final steps in arrangements for a March 9 liftoff on a service mission to the International Space Station.

Named after Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi, the ATV will take dry cargo (including food, clothing, experiments and spare parts), along with water, gas and propellant for delivery to the crewed orbital ability.

This latest ATV flight in support of International Space Station operations will utilize an Ariane 5 ES version of Arianespace's heavy-lift workhorse, underscoring the launcher's suppleness in meeting a full range of mission requirements. The launch of ATV Edoardo Amaldi follows Arianespace missions with Europe's first two Automated Transfer Vehicles, perform in February 2011 and March 2008 from the Spaceport in French Guiana.

An industry consortium led by Astrium produces the ATVs in a program manage by the European Space Agency.

Mars Science Laboratory Mission rank account

Engineers have established the root reason of a computer rearrange that occur two months ago on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and have strong-minded how to right it.

The fix involves altering how certain vacant data-holding locations, called registers, are configured in the memory management of the kind of computer chip used on the spacecraft. Billions of run on a test computer with the personalized register pattern yielded no repeat of the reset behavior. The assignment team made this software change on the spacecraft's PC last week and long-established this week that the update is winning.

Three days after launch, during use of the craft's star scanner. The cause has been recognized as a previously unknown design peculiarity in the memory organization unit of the Mars Science Laboratory computer processor. In rare set of situation unique to how this mission uses the processor, cache access errors could occur, resulting in instructions not being executed properly. This is what happen on the spacecraft.

"Good police officer work on thoughtful why the rearrange occurred has yielded a way to avert it from occurring again," said Mars Science Laboratory Deputy Project Manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The winning resolution of this difficulty was the ending of productive teamwork by engineers at the computer producer and JPL."

Vega rocket prepared for first flight

 The primary Vega launch campaigns begin in November with the fitting of the P80 first stage on the launch pad. The two solid-propellant second and third stages were additional to the vehicle; follow by the AVUM – Attitude & Vernier Upper component – liquid-propellant fourth stage.  

All four stages have undergone concluding acceptance, counting the difficult of the avionics, leadership, telemetry, propulsion, division pyrotechnics and safety systems.

These steps culminate on 13 January with Vega’s ‘mixture control checks’, where all systems were put into launch mode for the vehicle’s final acceptance. This included pressurising the AVUM propulsion systems that actuate the thruster valves.

The rocket’s elements were switch on from the manage bench to replicate the launch countdown. The onboard software then took in excess of and replicated the diverse stages of a flight. The interface between the vehicle and the control bench were also tested.