Iranian photo selected as NASA’s July picture of the day

‘Teimareh Petroglyphs and Star Trails’ by Babak Amin-Tafreshi

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selects a picture by Iranian photographer Babak Amin-Tafreshi as one of its July pictures of the day.

The star trail photograph which was selected as the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 12, 2012, shows ancient petroglyphs of Iran’s Teimareh Valley located in the country’s Zagros Mountains.

Engraved in rocks, the petroglyphs are abundant in the valley and depict hunters and animals as etched by prehistoric artists about 6,000 years ago.

In the night sky above are star trails etched by the rotation of planet Earth during the long composite exposure made with a modern digital camera.

Born in 1978, Babak Amin-Tafreshi is an amateur astronomer, photographer, and science journalist.

He is the creator and director of The World at Night (TWAN), an international program in which photographers from around the world capture images of night skies as seen above notable landmarks of the planet.

Amin-Tafreshi is also a member of the board of advisors of Astronomers without Borders who won the Lennart Nilsson Award for the best scientific photography.

The center of the star trail arcs in Amin-Tafreshi’s photo shows the North Celestial Pole (NCP), the extension of Earth's axis into space.

Polaris, the North Star, leaves the bright, short, stubby trail closest to the NCP, but when the petroglyphs were carved, Polaris would have made a long arc through the night.

Since the Earth's rotation axis processes like a wobbling top, 6,000 years ago the NCP was near the border of the constellations Draco and Ursa Major, some 30 degrees from its current location in Earth's sky.

The NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is originated, written, coordinated, and edited since 1995 by professional astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell.

The APOD archive contains the largest collection of annotated astronomical images online.

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Hubble discovers new moon circling Pluto

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new moon circling Pluto, which can help shed light on how the dwarf planet’s system formed and evolved.

P5 is the Pluto’s fifth satellite which was detected in nine sets of images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 during June and July 2012.

The moon is estimated to have an irregular shape and be between 10km and 25km across.

Seen as a speck of light in Hubble images, the moon is believed to be the result of a collision between Pluto and another large icy object billions of years ago.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said leader of the team Mark Showalter of the Seti Institute in Mountain View, US.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978.

The other three moons, spotted by Hubble in 2006 and 2011, were named Nix, Hydra and P4.

Pluto was discovered by the American Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. It was originally classified as the ninth planet in the Solar System, but was recategorized as a dwarf planet and plutoid due to the discovery that it is only one of several large bodies within the Kuiper belt.

The NASA spacecraft, New Horizons, is currently en route to Pluto to take detailed images of the planet’s system.

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Source: PressTv.Ir

Pakistani Engineer Develops Water-Run Rocket Missile

A Pakistani mechanical engineer and a school science teacher has developed a rocket missile, with initial capability of flying up to 320 feet high, which uses water as its fuel.

“I had to cut water bottle and to install air compressor to develop this missile,” says Muhammad Faisal, a teacher in Government Model School, Karachi, the economic hub of the country.

Using back pressure technique to launch, the missile could easily be used for training purposes in Pakistan Army, he viewed while talking with Daily Nai Baat.

“By adding Uranium material in the rocket to get air pressure, it could also be used to hit a target.”

Faisal is a gold medalist of a training course of mechanical engineering of Pakistan Air Force’s Engineering Corps.

A frenzy of inventions, Faisal looks determined to work for his country by adding his engineering and scientific inventions.(Via TNT)

Source: PakSoldiers.com