Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer and broadcaster, dies aged 89

British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore has died, aged 89.

e "passed away peacefully at 12:25 this afternoon" at his home in Selsey, West Sussex, friends and colleagues said in a statement.

Sir Patrick presented the BBC programme The Sky At Night for over 50 years, making him the longest-running host of the same television show ever.

He wrote dozens of books on astronomy and his research was used by the US and the Russians in their space programmes.

Described by one of his close friends as "fearlessly eccentric", Sir Patrick was notable for his habit of wearing a monocle on screen and his idiosyncratic style.

The acting director general of the BBC, Tim Davie, said his achievements at the corporation "were unmatched", adding that Sir Patrick will be missed by his "countless fans".

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: "Since I first met Sir Patrick when he dominated a UKIP stage in 1999, he has been a friend and an inspiration - not only to us in UKIP, but across the country and around the world. Today we have seen the passing of a true great, and a true Englishman."

See More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20657939

Grail satellites show Moon's violent history

Ebb and Flow - together known as the Grail mission - have mapped the subtle variations in gravity across the surface of the lunar body.

They show the Moon's crust to be a mass of pulverised rock - the remains of countless impacts.

Scientists say the beating was far more extensive than previously thought.

And this observation, they add, has relevance for the study of the Earth's ancient past.

It too would have been pummelled in the first billion years of its existence by the left-over debris from the construction of the planets.

And when the gravity measurements are combined with topographical information from another of Nasa's lunar satellites showing the surface highs and lows, it becomes possible to separate out that signal related just to the Moon's internal structure and composition.

The resolution of Grail's maps far exceeds anything previously achieved - a thousand to a hundred-thousand times' improvement.

This will be a boon to researchers as they study not just the general evolution of the body but how individual features on its surface formed - from the largest impact features like the ringed basins, right down to craters just 20-30km across.

One standout observation is that the Moon's crust - its topmost layer - ranges in thickness from 34km to 43km. These numbers are about 10-20km less than previously proposed.

See more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20617506

Experiment in Comics

What you need

1. 2 litre plastic bottle
2. Blue Tac
3. a bowl of water
4. a ketchup sachet

Instructions

1. Put the ketchup sachet into a bowl of water to see if it floats upright - if not then add a little Blue Tac to its bottom.
2. Fill the 2 litre bottle with water right to the top.
3. Push your ketchup diver through the neck of the bottle.
4. Put the lid on tightly, squeeze the bottle hard and watch your diver dive.

Results & explanation

The diver sinks when you squeeze the bottle, and rises when you let go.
Tip: if you diver doesn't dive, or sinks without rising, change the amount of blue tac on the sachet.
Squeezing the bottle queezes everything inside it, including the air bubbles in the ketchup sachet. As the air molecules squash together, the sachet gets more dense than the water and itsinks. What happens when you stop squeezing?

See more: http://www.physics.org/marvinandmilo.asp?id=28

Amazing pictures

Fun Cartoons

More funny physics cartoons:  
http://www.physics.org/marvinandmilo.asp?id=48

GRAIL's Gravity Map of the Moon

This image shows the variations in the lunar gravity field as measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) during the primary mapping mission from March to May 2012. Very precise microwave measurements between two spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, were used to map gravity with high precision and high spatial resolution. The field shown resolves blocks on the surface of about 12 miles (20 kilometers) and measurements are three to five orders of magnitude improved over previous data. Red corresponds to mass excesses and blue corresponds to mass deficiencies. The map shows more small-scale detail on the far side of the moon compared to the nearside because the far side has many more small craters. 

More amazing images: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Cartoon Physics - Wiki Article

Cartoon physics is a jocular system of laws of physics that supersedes the normal laws, used in animation for humorous effect. Normal physical laws are referential (i.e., objective, invariant), but c...
Cartoon Physics - Wiki Article - http://wikiplays.org
Original @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_physics

All Information Derived from Wikipedia using Creative Commons License: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA


Author: Unknown 
Image URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartoon_physics_WikiWorld.png
Licensed under:Creative Commons ASA 3.0, This work is in the public domain in the United States.

Author: Unknown 
Image URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartoon_physics_WikiWorld.png
Licensed under:Creative Commons ASA 3.0, This work is in the public domain in the United States.