Mika McKinnon

35 Awesome Facts About NASA’s New Carbon-Tracking Satellite

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory successfully launched early on July 2nd after a cliffhanger-scrub the night before. Here’s 35 snippets of behind-the-scenes details about the newest Earth-observing satellite tasked with monitoring our home. 1. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) carries a pricetag of less than $280 million dollars. Distributed amongst a population of over 310 million…

Here’s a Lightning Storm As Seen From the Space Station

The International Space Station is getting a new experiment to track lightning, trying to figure out how they spark high-energy gamma rays. Until then, the always-enthusiastic resident of the station Reid Wiseman has captured footage of lightning strikes for his latest Vine from space.

NASA’s Orbital Carbon Observatory Has Launched!

After the original Orbital Carbon Observatory crashed into the ocean, and the first attempt at launching the replacement observatory was scrubbed yesterday with less than a minute left in the countdown, we finally have a satellite capable of tracking carbon in our atmosphere. I was there. I’m at the Vandenberg Airforce Base in California, part…

NASA’s New Satellite Could Unravel the Mystery of Our Changing Climate

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 is a satellite tasked with tracking carbon sequestration around the world. It could revolutionize climate science, if only it could get into orbit. The original satellite crashed into the ocean, while the replacement’s launch was scrubbed in the final minute of countdown. Timelapse of the Mobile Service Tower (MST) rollback to…

Where Do Satellites Go To Die?

Although the International Space Station has a pair of self-repairing robots, most artificial objects in orbit aren’t nearly as lucky. Sooner or later, satellites reach the end of their useful life. When this happens, they either drop down and burn up during re-entry, or are sent to the satellite graveyard. The satellite graveyard is sadly…

A Successful First Flight for of the Saucer Test Vehicle over Hawaii

The long-awaited flying saucer test finally happened in the Hawaiian skies this weekend. The primary mission of evaluating the test vehicle was a complete success, but the bonus missions of evaluating new landing technologies were more mixed, with the parachute failing to deploy. The saucer-shaped test vehicle being lifted aboard the Kahana recovery vessel after…

Yale Offers A Course That’s Cross-Listed Between Physics & Theatre Arts

Class is held in a dance studio equipped with a white board, and students are tasked with calculating their choreography and dancing their equations. “The Physics of Dance” is run by Sarah Demers from the physics department, and Emily Coates from theatre arts. It’s an introduction to physics and dance, classical and modern. It takes…

Liquid Sculptures Highlight the Beauty in Fluid Dynamics

Fluid dynamics is beautiful and complex, with no single, simple equation to govern its dynamic behaviour. The mathematics is monstrous, with scaling factors, coefficients, and exponents customized to each fluid to reflect the quirks of its behaviours. Yet in practice, a single splash is simple beauty. This fleeting liquid sculpture is part of the Clourant…

Timelapses of New Zealand Are Stunning Science

New Zealand is a country of dramatic landscapes, astounding skies, and not a lot of people to get in the way. Today’s stunning timelapse is a four-part series of break-sized awe for the beauty of the natural world, and an excellent excuse to talk about the science behind the breathtaking scenes. Martin Heck of Timestorm…

Physics Comics from the Golden Age

The Golden Age of comic books overlapped with a period of optimistic obsession with science. Reaching out to people with a passion for technology and comics led to the creation of a glorious collection of education mixed with entertainment. Physics Central has gone archive-diving for their favourites. The physics blog explains that the science in…

X-Rays in Perseus May Be the Signature of Dark Matter

Most of the universe is made up out of things we can’t find. While dark matter is just that — dark — an X-ray anomaly in Perseus and 72 other galaxies may finally be a tell-tale signature of a particular form of dark matter releasing light as it decays. A strange X-ray emission line shows…

A Crescent Moon Above a Darkened Planet

The Expedition 40 crew on the International Space Station are very good at remembering to be awestruck by their surreal surroundings. On May 30, 2014, one of them stayed plastered to a window staring at the delicate sliver of the moon over the gentle curve of the Earth’s horizon. Moon over the Earth from the…

Pop Quiz! Space Shuttle History

On this day in history, shuttle mission STS-7 safely landed, concluding the mission. What was special about this particular mission? https://observationdeck.kinja.com/pop-quiz-sts-7-1595291555

Timelapses of Solar Puffing Are Gently Mesmerizing

When a trio of telescopes teamed up to stare at the sun, they captured the dynamics of solar puffing. The timelapse of a puff is gently mesmerizing: not outright stunning or mind-boggling, but somehow still incredible in their understated hiccupping release of plasma. A jet building into a puff. The red-green-blue channels are each mapped…

Analyzing Alaska’s Totally Harmless Megathrust Earthquake

Alaska was hit by a major earthquake today, and it was totally harmless. The magnitude 7.9 subduction-zone earthquake let off a build-up of tectonic stress in the most harmless way possible, proving that with disasters, location really is everything. Seismograph record of the station located on Adak, Alaska. Image credit: USGS The earthquake hit at…

A Double Red Rainbow at Sunset

These double bows at sunset are a study in red, a gorgeous pair of rainbows, and a lesson in optics. This is photograph is something special. Captured at sunset on April 27th, 2014 by Manolis Thravalos from Samos Island, Greece, the sun was behind the camera. The list of optical phenomena is substantial: rainbows, red-tinted…

Designing a Deca-millennium Warning System

Symbols change meaning over time, so how do you set up a warning system to warn people off of living near nuclear waste repositories for 10,000 years or more? A radio show on design, 99% Invisible, tackles the problem, outlining the limitations and proposed solutions. The whole history of ideas is fascinating, but one of…

Before and After the Southern California Fires

Last month, a drought, heat wave, and dry Santa Ana winds combined together to exacerbate fires in southern California. Here’s a pair of satellite images of the San Diego region in May, separated by just eight days and far too much fire. Southern California on May 9 and May 17, 2014. Image credit: NASA Up…

The Art of Extinct Animals, as Illustrated in the 1800s

Geology isn’t the only discipline that produced spectacular illustrations in the 1800s, and the Iguanodon isn’t the only extinct animal we’ve reconstructed differently throughout time. Here are an assortment of 19th century illustrations of extinct creatures. https://gizmodo.com/this-geological-field-notebook-is-an-elegant-look-at-mo-1588374224 https://gizmodo.com/illustrations-of-the-iguana-toothed-dinosaur-1574184389 https://gizmodo.com/strange-19th-century-drawings-of-dinosaurs-and-other-ex-1593696125

In the dark recesses of video games, hiding beneath the plot and behind the art, interacting with the very hardware of your system, lurk the fundamental subroutines that determine lighting… Learn about the role of physics plays in determining dynamic lighting effects in video games.