Bloodhound SSC

As a new year begins more scientific tests will be conducted to break the existing records. Among these tests, the one that caught my eye is the Bloodhound SSC (Super-Sonic Car) project. Its goal? To break the land speed record.

It will be tested in early 2015 at South Africa Hakskeen Pan. The driver will be Andy Green. He is the one who drove Thrust SSC which is the car that set the previous land speed record. The project director is Richard Noble, the man who started the Thrust 2 and the Thrust SSC. The test will be conducted on a 12 mile track. The current land speed record is 763.035 mph. The aim of Bloodhound SSC is to reach 1,050 mph or Mach 1.4. The car is calculated to reach 1,000 mph in 55 seconds. At its top speed, the wheels will spin at 10304 rpm.  The car will travel 150 meters in the blink of an eye.  The car will be faster than a Magnum 357 bullet when the car reaches the maximum speed.

The main competitors of Bloodhound SSC are the RV1 from the bullet project, the Aussie Invader 5R designed by Australian drag race record-holder Rosco McGlashan and the North American Eagle which is actually based on the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

Summary: I am really, really excited about this project. I think that this is a great way to encourage youth to get into science. Good luck to all these projects!

Moved to Malaysia

I moved to Malaysia as my father has relocated here. I am going to study at an international school called Rafflesia. I have already passed PSLE in Singapore.  Then I took an entrance test at the new school and has been accepted to attend Secondary 2. Here is the schools website:http://welcome.rafflesia.edu.my/. I am excited to study the Cambridge Secondary subjects because the syllabus is different from the one in Singapore.

Neutron stars

An artists depiction of a neutron star

Neutron Stars are the left-overs of stars that have died in supernovae. They are the smallest and densest stars ever found. They are very rare and very small. However, they are extremely interesting.

A supernova happens at the end of a giant star's life when they are unable to stop the heavy core of the star from collapsing under the gravity that it produces. This causes a huge implosion, which is the opposite of an explosion, often burning brighter than an entire galaxy. When all the materials from the outer shell is ejected, a lone neutron star, about the size of a city, shines dimly.

The inner structure of a neutron star.
The inner core's structure is unknown

This neutron star, approximately 140000 times smaller than the Sun, weighs up to 3 times as heavy as the Sun! A single teaspoon of neutron star weighs as much as a mountain. Thus, the strong gravitational forces and magnetic fields of the neutron star will destroy any object that comes too close to it.


In conclusion neutron stars are very strange and dangerous. However I am fascinated by them.


Credits for an artists depiction of a neutron star:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANeutron_star_cross_section.svg
By Robert Schulze (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Credits for the inner structure of a neutron star: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANeutron_star_illustrated.jpg
By Casey Reed - Penn State University (Casey Reed - Penn State University) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

HD 189773b: The Blue Planet that Rains Glass

HD 189773b

The planet named as HD 189773b looks cosy and Earth-like. Doesn't it? However, you would not like to live there. Firstly, the surface temperature there is 1,000°C (1,832°F) and secondly, it rains glass, sideways, at the speed of 4000 mph.

In space terms, this planet not far from Earth. It is actually a mere 63 light years (370,353,398,510,567 miles) away . So that is why Hubble and other telescopes that are orbiting Earth can see it in so much details. On October 5th 2005, an astronomer in France found this planet orbiting the star HD 189733a (note that our sun is also a star). It orbits the star at a speed of 341,000 mph (549,000 kph). In comparison, our Earth's average orbiting speed is 67,000mph(107,200 kph). This planet has a mass that is 13% more than the mass of Jupiter (which is the largest planet in our solar system and is made of gas). This makes it a hot Jupiter (which means it is a hot gas planet about the same size of Jupiter) and destroy almost all prospects of extra-terrestrial life. Every year on HD 189773b is equivalent to 2.2 Earth days because it orbits its star very closely.


A graph of the visible-light colours of planets 
including HD 189733b

On March 2010 it was found out that this planet is evaporating at a rate of 1,000,000,000 to 100,000,000,000 grams every second. In July (which, by the way is the month I was born in :-)) this year, NASA also found out that this planet blocks three times more X-rays than visible light.  

The blue colour of the planet is thought to have come from silicate particles which scatter blue lights. These particles, which are found in the planets atmosphere, then condense into glass due to very hgih temperature. That is why it rains glass.

Conclusion: It is very unusual to find a planet like this. However there is not a lot of interesting stuff about this planet because no extra-terrestrial life can survive there. I give it a 7/10



Image Credit:






HD 189773b: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHD_189733_b_deep_blue_dot.jpg: 
By NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Visible-light Colours of Planets: The colour of HD 189733b compared to our Solar system. Credit: NASA [This file is in public domain because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright states that "NASA material is not pretected by copyright unless stated"] 

Europa: A Possible Source of Extraterrestrial (ET) life?

In our Solar system, the planet Jupiter has 67 moons. Europa is one of those 67 moons. It is the sixth largest moon in the Solar System. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. But what most people do not know was that Europa was possibly discovered by Simon Marius, a German astronomer, around the same time that Galileo discovered it. At that time people thought that it was just an insignificant and tiny dot in the sky, but recent studies suggest that Europa might be a potential harbour for life.

Europa

There is an ocean with liquid water beneath the icy crust! The reason? Tidal flexing which cause the ice to melt into water. What is tidal flexing? Well, it is hard to explain so click here to read an article about it. Anyway, scientists believe that life there could be similar to life found in the deep ocean (that region it also called the Hadalpelagic zone) on Earth.

The internal structure of Europa with Jupiter in the background

Now, if your looking at the labels of this blog post you may be wondering what bullets have got to do with Europa. Well, researchers at University College London  have designed a 19.6 kg bullet that is loaded with scientific equipments such as seismograph to measure tremors and a miniature chemistry lab to study the ice and the water beneath it. This giant missile could smash through the icy crust of Europa. This could be deployed around 2023 and it could answer one of the greatest mysteries in our solar system: Is there life on Europa (and if the answer is yes, whether it likes getting shot at by a giant bullet).

Conclusion: Europa is a very exciting natural satellite (moon) and I love the simplicity the research plan. I think if there is life up there then it would look very familiar to tube worms and other deep sea creatures. For this innovative method and awesomeness at the prospect of finding extraterrestrial life that is so close to our planet, I give this research and Europa a 10/10.

Image credits:

Europa: Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europa-moon.jpg 
The internal structure of Europa with Jupiter in the background:By Kelvinsong (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEuropa_poster.svg

Khan Academy: My Favourite Educational Website

In this post I will be introducing you to Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a brilliant educational website that teaches you almost every subject for free.

If you clicked on the link on "My Favourite Websites" and figured out how to use it then good. If you didn't then this is how you do it. First you choose if you want to sign in using Facebook or Google. I don't have a Facebook account so I don't know how to sign in using Facebook but I assume that it is the same as signing in with Google. When signing in with Google you have to write your password and email address and voila! You are signed in!

Once you signed in you can watch the videos on the Khan Academy website and gain Energy Points to unlock avatars. Each video earns you 750 energy points depending on how much of the video you watched. You can also earn badges for doing certain things. For example watching 1 hour of video in a single topic gets you an Awesome Listener badge. When you earn certain badges like the Hard at Work badge you also get extra energy points. There are 6 different types of badges: the meteorite badges, the Moon badges, the Earth badges, the Sun badges, the Black Hole badges and the challenge badges. Meteorite badges are the easiest badges and the Black Hole badges are the hardest as they don't tell you what to do to earn them.

You can set yourself goals to achieve. You can see graphs that shows your activity, your focus, your skill progress and your progress over time. You can create computer programs. There is also an Exercise Dashboard where you can attain mastery. At the moment I have 129,871 Energy Points, I have watched 109 out of the 4149 videos, I have 35 out of the 414 stars and my avatar is Old Spice Man. My favourite topics are Science and Humanities.

Summary: I think Khan Academy is a fantastic, brilliant, informative and educational website. I give the website a 10/10.