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Solar System: 5 Things To Know This Week

Our solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are 5 things to know this week: 

1. Make a Wish

The annual Leonids meteor shower is not known for a high number of “shooting stars” (expect as many as 15 an hour), but they’re usually bright and colorful. They’re fast, too: Leonids travel at speeds of 71 km (44 miles) per second, which makes them some of the fastest. This year the Leonids shower will peak around midnight on Nov. 17-18. The crescent moon will set before midnight, leaving dark skies for watching. Get more viewing tips HERE.

2. Back to the Beginning

Our Dawn mission to the dwarf planet Ceres is really a journey to the beginning of the solar system, since Ceres acts as a kind of time capsule from the formation of the asteroid belt. If you’ll be in the Washington DC area on Nov. 19, you can catch a presentation by Lucy McFadden, a co-investigator on the Dawn mission, who will discuss what we’ve discovered so far at this tiny but captivating world. Find out how to attend HERE. 

3. Keep Your Eye on This Spot

The Juno spacecraft is on target for a July 2016 arrival at the giant planet Jupiter. But right now, your help is needed. Members of the Juno team are calling all amateur astronomers to upload their telescopic images and data of Jupiter. This will help the team plan their observations. Join in HERE.

4. The Ice Volcanoes of Pluto

The more data from July’s Pluto flyby that comes down from the New Horizons spacecraft, the more interesting Pluto becomes. The latest finding? Possible ice volcanoes. Using images of Pluto’s surface to make 3-D topographic maps, scientists discovered that some mountains on Pluto, such as the informally named Piccard Mons and Wright Mons, had structures that suggested they could be cryovolcanoes that may have been active in the recent geological past.

5. Hidden Storm

Cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft have been tracking an impressive cloud hovering over the south pole of Saturn’s moon Titan. But that cloud has turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. A much more massive ice cloud system has been found lower in the stratosphere, peaking at an altitude of about 124 miles (200 kilometers).

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

Could we truly be blind to race?

Professor Osagie K. Obasogie’s research on how blind people perceive race reveals that understanding race is not simply based on visual cues, but based how we’re socialized and what we’re taught.

When asked what race a person was, the respondents who were all blind at birth, largely defined race by visually observable indicators, such as skin color, facial features and other physical characteristics.

And contrary to what many might think, the UC Hastings professor found that blind people don’t rely on audible cues as a way to identify a person’s race, because many of them have learned that speech is an unreliable marker of someone’s race.

Instead, Obasogie’s subjects understood race visually based on the physical traits that they were taught to be markers for racial differences.

In the study, subjects recalled childhood experiences where they were told what people of certain color look like or even smell like.

And people around them often reinforced racial biases by patrolling racial boundaries, such as telling them they can’t date outside their race, or implying that the person next to them could be potentially dangerous. Obasogie told NPR:

“Blind people aren’t any more or less racist than anyone else. Indeed, part of the point of this project is that vision has very little to do with it. What matters are the social practices that train us to see and experience race in certain ways, regardless of whether we are sighted or not.”

Read more about Obasogie’s study at Boston Globe

And thank you to Julia Wilde at “That’s So Science” for hosting the DNews episode!

Sorting algorithms are of great interest because of their obvious applications in computer programs, but also because of their mathematical properties. One question in particular: what is the minimum number of comparisons necessary to sort a list of values? For lists of

NASA - Aquarius Mission logo. June 17, 2015 An international Earth-observing mission launched in 2011 to study the salinity of the ocean surface ended June 8 when an essential part of the power and attitude control system for the SAC-D spacecraft, which carries NASA’s...

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Star from the Lizard Constellation Photobombs Hubble Observation

In space, being outshone is an occupational hazard. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a galaxy named NGC 7250. Despite being remarkable in its own right — it has bright bursts of star formation and recorded supernova explosions— it blends into the background somewhat thanks to the gloriously bright star hogging the limelight next to it. The bright object seen in this Hubble image is a single and little-studied star named TYC 3203-450-1, located in the constellation of Lacerta (The Lizard). The star is much closer than the much more distant galaxy. Only this way can a normal star outshine an entire galaxy, consisting of billions of stars. Astronomers studying distant objects call these stars “foreground stars” and they are often not very happy about them, as their bright light is contaminating the faint light from the more distant and interesting objects they actually want to study. In this case, TYC 3203-450-1 is million times closer than NGC 7250, which lies more than 45 million light-years away from us. If the star were the same distance from us as NGC 7250, it would hardly be visible in this image. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA NASA image use policy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram

This map shows where 25 iconic movies were filmed in New York City

The U.S. is increasing its attacks on sprawling ISIS oil fields in eastern Syria. https://t.co/PZyFcdonkd

Source: twitter / nytgraphics