Latest Posts by earthbending-sjw - Page 3

The only white guy in the office after black panther

The best thing coming out of Black Panther is the renewed calls for the release of jailed Black Panther members who’ve been incarcerated for decades. The FBI’s terrorism unit had labeled them “black identity extremists”, claiming that activists fighting police brutality posed a violent threat. 

W’Kabi: “You would kill me my love?”

Okoye:

Some knowledge ✊🏾

Largest Batch of Earth-size, Habitable Zone Planets

Our Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in an area called the habitable zone, where liquid water is most likely to exist on a rocky planet.

This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system.

Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven.

This is the FIRST time three terrestrial planets have been found in the habitable zone of a star, and this is the FIRST time we have been able to measure both the masses and the radius for habitable zone Earth-sized planets.

All of these seven planets could have liquid water, key to life as we know it, under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

At about 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth, the system of planets is relatively close to us, in the constellation Aquarius. Because they are located outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. To clarify, exoplanets are planets outside our solar system that orbit a sun-like star.

In this animation, you can see the planets orbiting the star, with the green area representing the famous habitable zone, defined as the range of distance to the star for which an Earth-like planet is the most likely to harbor abundant liquid water on its surface. Planets e, f and g fall in the habitable zone of the star.

Using Spitzer data, the team precisely measured the sizes of the seven planets and developed first estimates of the masses of six of them. The mass of the seventh and farthest exoplanet has not yet been estimated.

For comparison…if our sun was the size of a basketball, the TRAPPIST-1 star would be the size of a golf ball.

Based on their densities, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky. Further observations will not only help determine whether they are rich in water, but also possibly reveal whether any could have liquid water on their surfaces.

The sun at the center of this system is classified as an ultra-cool dwarf and is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun.

 The planets also are very close to each other. How close? Well, if a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.

The planets may also be tidally-locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong wind blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes.

Because most TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky, and they are very close to one another, scientists view the Galilean moons of Jupiter – lo, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede – as good comparisons in our solar system. All of these moons are also tidally locked to Jupiter. The TRAPPIST-1 star is only slightly wider than Jupiter, yet much warmer. 

How Did the Spitzer Space Telescope Detect this System?

Spitzer, an infrared telescope that trails Earth as it orbits the sun, was well-suited for studying TRAPPIST-1 because the star glows brightest in infrared light, whose wavelengths are longer than the eye can see. Spitzer is uniquely positioned in its orbit to observe enough crossing (aka transits) of the planets in front of the host star to reveal the complex architecture of the system. 

Every time a planet passes by, or transits, a star, it blocks out some light. Spitzer measured the dips in light and based on how big the dip, you can determine the size of the planet. The timing of the transits tells you how long it takes for the planet to orbit the star.

The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets. Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler will help astronomers plan for follow-up studies using our upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone and other components of a planet’s atmosphere.

At 40 light-years away, humans won’t be visiting this system in person anytime soon…that said…this poster can help us imagine what it would be like: 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

happy Galentine’s Day!

After 4 rigorous years of study, I received my Bachelors of Science in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University! The sky is not the limit, I’m just getting started. Come fly with me 👨🏾‍🎓👨🏾‍✈️✈️

The (Real) Scientific Process

Ask a question: 

Apply for funding

Ask a new question based on funding

Construct a hypothesis

Conduct experiments

Troubleshoot experiments

Conduct even more experiments

Analyze data

Draw conclusions

Communicate results (i.e. PUBLISH)

Repeat, ad infinitum…

I have no idea who Scalia was. Isn’t that the thing that people call themselves when they are furries but with reptiles?

Star Trek Crew + Hogwarts Houses

NASA awards contract for refueling mission spacecraft

NASA has awarded the Restore-L Spacecraft Bus and Support Services contract to Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California. Restore-L is a robotic spacecraft equipped with the tools, technologies and techniques needed to service satellites currently in orbit.

The contract has a firm-fixed-price and includes a three-year core period and a two-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity portion. The total maximum value of the contract is $127 million.

Space Systems/Loral will provide spacecraft bus, critical hardware and services for the development, deployment and operations of the Restore-L mission. They also will provide related services to accomplish mission integration, test, launch and operations.

The Restore-L Project is managed within NASA’s Satellite Servicing Projects Division at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Read more ~ SpaceDaily

Image: The Restore-L servicer extends its robotic arm to grasp and refuel a client satellite on orbit. Artist’s rendering.     Image courtesy NASA.

Dear grad students

As a recently graduated PhD, I completely understand your stress, your worry, your anxiety, your exhaustion, your endless sense of uncertainty, your feeling that even though you do all you can, it’ll never be good enough. Before I graduated, I heard lots of scary things from my mentors- that it would never end, that things get even more stressful after graduation, that in order to be successful you have to work nights and weekends for the rest of your life, that I’d have to pick between research and clinical work. 

 I want you to know those are scare tactics, not reality. 

 Life gets better post-PhD. I sleep better, my skin is clearer, I’m more mindful, my immune system is better, I can focus on TV enough to watch an entire episode of Sherlock, I’m more motivated and able to do fun social things in my free time- and I actually have free time! 

 And it’s still possible to be successful at work. I spent college and grad school learning how to work well. How to work efficiently and effectively. How to prioritize my responsibilities. How to learn new things. How to set my own deadlines. How to work with other people, who may have completely different working styles. How to receive critical feedback. How to live in an uncertain world and be confident in myself anyway. 

Now I use all those skills, and my mentors and colleagues take me seriously. They trust my skills and my work. I don’t have to prove myself constantly anymore. Work is better. It’s easier, and I’m more effective. 

Best of all, getting out of grad school has ended the tunnel vision grad school creates. I can see my whole life now, and prioritize what I want, rather than only seeing grad school stretching into the endless future. My whole identity doesn’t have to be centered around grad school. My goals don’t have to be solely academic. 

Which is amazing because I get to be a complete person, and because it means I have more options for my life. The further I get away from grad school, the more I realize I don’t have to get that tenure track job at some super prestigious university to be happy or successful. I have options. And I can pick what’s important to me- the perfect job, the perfect institution, the perfect financial package, the perfect location. I don’t have to put academic success first in order to be a good scientist or to prove myself. I can pursue the right life for me.  

You can, too. You can make it to the other side. You can pursue happiness and success. Keep going. 

Not a grad student, just an overworked undergrad.

But, I love to cook! It's easily my favorite form of stress relief. You get to turn on your favorite music and get distracted for 30 minutes to almost 2 hours (depending on the recipe). Then you get to eat yummy food!

Grad students of Tumblr:

What do you do to destress? Like so far I found exercise (running and and blogging help a lot. Want to get back into dance next year… What else do you do?

SCAM: You cannot vote by text

Republicans have a new scam going.  They have created memes, messages, etc. encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to vote early by text.  Avoid long lines it says..well this is a SCAM.  You cannot vote by text.  Republicans are just trying to disenfranchise voters.  And oh look, they are targeting African American voters.  Republicans never stop trying to prevent black people from voting.

Righty Tighty Lefty Loose-y

This never made much sense to me. When you rotate clockwise the top is moving right while the bottom is moving left. When you rotate counter-clockwise the top is moving left while bottom is moving right. It's all about perspective.

As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a Congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.

Burning Donald Trump, who says his opponent doesn’t “look presidential” and “doesn’t have stamina,” HILLARY CLINTON (via inothernews)

I O U: Ten Reasons Why John Watson is Actually Moriarty

(1)   They already told us:

They’ve been telling us since Season 1:

See also:

(2)  Are We Sure That Little Girl is Pointing At Sherlock.  Are we sure.  Are we positive.

(3)  The Storyteller. 

Who’s the storyteller of the Sherlock Holmes canon again?

(4)  Sherlock’s first introduction to John (and his subsequent deductions) is paralleled to his first introduction to Moriarty:

Of course Sherlock’s deductions about Moriarty are totally wrong, manipulated by fake characteristics that were planted to fool Sherlock into dismissing him.

But let’s face it - faking an entirely psychosomatic limp that you can forget about half the time, offering a phone that’s been engraved with “clues,” and loudly declaring “different from back in my day” when you enter the room aren’t much more difficult than irritating one’s own eyes to suggest that you go clubbing and picking up a visible underwear brand.

More beneath the cut…

Keep reading

Oh my god. This kitten is named LeVar Purrton.

i need the kind of job a movie scientist has, the kind where i can sit in a lab by myself all day and do cool genius things and no one bothers me and it’s perfectly acceptable that i have no social skills

This may just be the cutest thing i’ve ever watched omg

For the record, every study method has the potential to be a poor study method. Remember to engage in the material before you and ask yourself if you really understand those notes you rewrote or those flashcards you made. If the answer is yes, then carry on. But, if the answer is no, you may want to reconsider how you revise…

Http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/Philae_close-up Today is my 21st Birthday and ESA found philae for me!

WHEN THE SEMINAR IS ACTUALLY IN YOUR FIELD

credit: onepuffin

I can’t be the only one thinking this, so, gotta get it outta my system, hahaha

i think the coolest thing would be to see a new color

I asked my students how they thought water arrived on Earth, and one of them said "the Great Flood!?"

I love Parks and Rec so much

One of the best out takes from any television show, ever.