CheshireCatCO - Slashdot User

Submission + - JPL Scientists Take NASA to the Supreme Court (airspacemag.com)

Submitted by CheshireCatCO on Saturday September 25, 2010 @06:57PM

CheshireCatCO writes: Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, concerned about background checks now required of federal employees, sued NASA to suspect the checks back in 2007. The case has how worked its way up to the Supreme Court. At stake: whether all federal employees can be forced to undergo open-ended background checks whether or not the employee has exposure to classified or sensitive information. The background checks, which can include interviewing people from employees' pasts such as landlords and teachers, may seek, among other things, sexual histories.

Submission + - Observatory is the Droid You are Looking For (io9.com)

Submitted by CheshireCatCO on Friday June 04, 2010 @12:49PM

CheshireCatCO writes: Pranksters at Carleton College (in Northfield, MN) turned Goodsell Observatory on campus into R2D2 overnight Wednesday. In the morning, the observatory played droid sounds and moved its "head" back and forth, a la R2.

Submission + - First Images from 50-km Enceladus Flyby (ciclops.org)

Submitted by

CheshireCatCO

on Tuesday August 12, 2008 @07:11PM

CheshireCatCO writes: "The first pictures from yesterday's flyby of Enceladus are now public. At closest approach, Cassini was set spinning to cancel out the apparent motion of Enceladus so as to capture unsmeared images during the 40,000 mph flyby. Although it wasn't clear that this would work (errors in pointing could easily have made the cameras miss their targets), the maneuver panned out beautifully, producing spectacular images of the surface. Images show the "tiger stripes" at the south pole, including at least one location that has been identified as a source of a jet, as well as considerable vertical relief, easily visible thanks to the low sun-angle near the south pole at present. Processed, enhanced images should follow shortly."

Submission + - Cassini to "Skeet-Shoot" Enceladus (ciclops.org)

Submitted by

CheshireCatCO

on Thursday August 07, 2008 @11:48AM

CheshireCatCO writes: "When the Cassini makes its closest-approach during the flyby of the moon Enceladus next Monday (11 Aug.), the spacecraft will be zipping by too quickly to turn and image in the usual way. This time, they'll try something new: a "Skeet-shoot" of the surface. The spacecraft will start to spin before the closest-approach to the south pole so that when the best resolution is possible, the moon will drift through the field of view slowly enough to (hopefully) acquire unsmeared images of the eruption-sites on the surface that give rise to the plume that extends thousands of kilometers into space and produces the E ring.

This flyby will be optimized for the imaging instruments (ISS, VIMS, CIRS, and UVS) in contrast with the March flyby, which was designed for the fields-and-particles instruments."

Submission + - Cassini's Best Images (ciclops.org)

Submitted by CheshireCatCO on Monday December 31, 2007 @05:29PM

CheshireCatCO writes: The winners of the best images from the Cassini spacecraft (taken since Cassini images of Saturn were first acquired in February 2004) have been announced. The winner of best color image is In Saturn's Shadow, the stunning, high-phase portrait of Saturn from opposite the Sun. Winners of best black-and-white and best movie (both categories resulted in ties) are also available.

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