The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 25 August 2003. This was the last telescope of NASA’s Great Observatories program. It is the fourth member of this family, which consists of Hubble Space Telescope for visible light, Chandra X-ray Telescope and Compton Gamma-ray observatory. The picture on the left is taken by the Spitzer sometime in November of one of my favorite objects, M81. The three images at the bottom are taken at three different frequencies ranging from 3.6 to 24 microns. The big image is a composite of all three and the inset is taken in visible light.
Consisting of a 0.85-meter telescope and three cryogenically-cooled science instruments, Spitzer is the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space. Its highly sensitive instruments give us a unique view of the Universe and allow us to peer into regions of space which are hidden from optical telescopes. Many areas of space are filled with vast, dense clouds of gas and dust which block our view. Infrared light, however can penetrate these clouds, allowing us to peer into regions of star formation, the centers of galaxies, and into newly forming planetary systems.
Because infrared is primarily heat radiation, the telescope must be cooled to near absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit or -273 degrees Celsius) so that it can observe infrared signals from space without interference from the telescope’s own heat. Also, the telescope must be protected from the heat of the Sun and the infrared radiation put out by the Earth. To do this, Spitzer carries a solar shield and will be launched into an Earth-trailing solar orbit. This unique orbit places Spitzer far enough away from the Earth to allow the telescope to cool rapidy without having to carry large amounts of cryogen. It carries 360 litres of liquid Helium which wil last through 5 years of operation.
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I was looking at some old pictures and remembered how beautiful Venice was.
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Would someone please shoot this moron?
Saddam is Islam’s hero: Imam
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All you need is a creative mind to find an undesirable application for every good invention. Google Bomb is an excellent example. Google’s incredible algorithm finds webpages with your exact search keyword, and also finds webpages that donot have the keyword but are linked to pages that have the keyword. If one creates a webpage multiple links to a certain website using the keyword as the link, that website can be at the top of the search results of Google. Easy way to manipulate Google results.
Blogger Jivha created this google bomb to term Times of India as Dishrag of India. Click here to see the reults of Google search for Dishrag of India.
Another blogger Ankh is thinking about creating a google bomb to term Praful Bidwai as the Resident Idiot. I just contributed to his efforts by making this link. I have had enough of this idiot too. He recently expressed his opinions in a BBC interview that the call centers are bad for India. He termed the job growth experienced in this sector as “irrational exuberance” and something that has no future. Of course, he blamed it on the current government for lpromoting this as a short-cut remedy for India’s long-standing problems of poverty and illiteracy. It is ridiculous to reject any kind of jobs when unemployment runs as high as it does in India.
Maybe, the Resident Idiot is just a moron who knows only to criticize the current government no matter what they do.
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Donated blood this morning. Feeling my usual high: the false sense of achievement that one gets from donating blood. Feels good that I did something useful, maybe it will save someone’s life. But, without really doing anything other than lying down for 10 minutes, getting poked and thanked by nurses with a cup of apple juice and a cookie.
I am AB+. The universal recipient. How much more selfish can I be? Thankfully, there aren’t too many of us. Only 3% of the population is AB+.
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Indian cricket team is in a good position at the end of 4th day’s play. Ajit Agarkar took his 6 wickets (his first 5 in an innings) in Australia’s second innings to end it with a total of 196. Thanks to fine batting by Dravid and Laxman in the first innings even after Sachin and Ganguly getting out on 1 and 0, that Austratlia didn’t end up with a very big lead from first innings. Indian openers held ground with 37 for 0 at the end of the day. On the last day they need only 193 to win with all 10 wickets in hand. There is no way they can’t make this target unless it rains and washes out the day’s play. If they end up losing here, I’ll stop following Indian cricket. It is a promise!
Impressive bowling by Agarkar. 16-2-41-6. He usually bowls well but, not consistently. In one-day matches, he bowls one or two maiden overs in the first spell, but then, his second spell is usually horrible and ends up with stats like 10-2-60-*. His performance has been improving over time. He is 26 years old, not very young. But, still has a few good years ahead of him.
Updated on Dec 16th: India did manage to win the match. Horray! Rahul Dravid delivered another solid performance in the second innings and received a much deserved ‘Man of the Match’ award. As per my promise, I’ll not stop following Indian cricket.
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Pentagon: Halliburton May Have Overcharged in Iraq
Did anyone really not know that this was going on?
A Pentagon audit of Halliburton, the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, found the company may have overbilled the U.S. government by more than $120 million on Iraq contracts.
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Adenovirus is a small DNA virus that replicates its genome and assembles new virus particles inside the nucleus of the host cell. One of the viral capsid proteins, protein VI, has near its C terminus both nuclear localization signal (NLS) and nuclear export signal (NES).
The major adenovirus capsid protein (hexon) is produced in the cytosol and so must be imported into the nucleus for virus particle assembly. Protein VI binds to it, and carries hexon molecules into the nucleus, using its NLS to hitch a ride on the host nuclear importers, and then return empty-handed to the cytosol via its NES-exporter interaction.
When capsid proteins are sufficiently concentrated in the nucleus to allow for efficient virus assembly, both nuclear transport signals in protein VI are degraded by proteolysis, trapping the protein in the nucleus and uncovering its third function as a structural component of the capsid itself. Pretty nifty for a small protein with about 225 residues.
The complete article can be found at EMBO Journal, 22, 6245 (2003).
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