French cuisine, wine and literature have long been celebrated worldwide. Additionally, their history and culture span many millennia. France boasts twelve time zones – more than any other nation – and are also among the leading cheese producers worldwide. Additionally, in February 2016 France introduced a law mandating supermarkets donate unsold food items to charities…
Although insects may seem like pests, they serve an invaluable purpose. By recycling nutrients and providing sustenance to other creatures – including humans – insects are vitally important. Some interesting bug facts include how termites use vibration to detect various kinds of wood in their environment and cricket chirps can predict temperature changes. Flying Beetles…
As sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes blue due to scattering caused by Rayleigh Scattering as well as other effects. Light rays are dispersed into all directions by oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, with blue wavelengths dispersing more widely than red ones – giving sky its distinctive hue. Rayleigh Scattering As light…
NASA spacecraft names are as symbolic as their missions are effective. While NASA follows certain guidelines when selecting mission names, creativity can still come into play here. Motherboard reports that the process for naming began in the early ’60s with the creation of the Project Designation Committee. Voyager NASA originally designed two spacecraft as part…
Spacecraft are designed starting with designs. These designs can take the form of rough sketches on napkins or more detailed engineering drawings created using software such as NX. While NX software is highly valued in aerospace design circles, its acquisition and learning can be quite costly. Siemens PLM Software has decided to give students at…
Rabbits are intriguing animals with many fascinating characteristics and quirks – but do you really understand everything there is to know about your fluffy friend? Do you know that rabbit ears can rotate 360 degrees to detect sounds and potential predators, or that they shed their baby teeth once in their lives? They’re Crepuscular Crepuscular…
As throwing something into the air causes it to follow a curving path, so too do satellites require an equal balance of momentum from their rocket and gravity in order to remain in orbit. Only when this equilibrium has been found can spacecraft remain stationary within their orbital path. Some orbits, like those occupied by…
Mercury, located nearer to the Sun than Earth and much smaller, serves as an historical record of early events within our Solar System without being erased by water and ice erosion. Its sun-baked surface has preserved evidence of Earth’s early history without degradation from water and ice erosion. Chen-Wan Yen of JPL performed meticulous calculations…
Ancient astronomers were mystified by the Red Planet’s seemingly random movement across the sky, sometimes moving in line with its celestial neighbors (prograde motion) or in reverse (retrograde). Although Mars and Earth share many similarities, they differ greatly in many aspects. Atmosphere Mars has an extremely tenuous atmosphere with pressure that is less than 1…
