1 February 2003 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time: STS-107 disintegrated over eastern Texas during reentry. A briefcase sized piece of insulating foam broke off the external fuel tank during launch and struck the leading edge of the left wing at 3000 km/h. Impact damage to the thermal protection system 17 days earlier allowed hot gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure during reentry.
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News from The Physics Hypertextbook
Create a Vacuum Day
Posted on Saturday, February 4th, 2012 at 12:01 am Eastern Time.
categories: events
Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster (2003)
Posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 9:00 am Eastern Time.
Explorer I launched (1958)
Posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 12:01 am Eastern Time.
31 January 1958: Explorer 1 became the first artificial satellite launched into space by the United States. Onboard was a cosmic ray detector designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Explorer I subsequently discovered the Van Allen Radiation Belts.
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (1986)
Posted on Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 11:39 am Eastern Time.
28 January 1986 11:39 AM: The Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L broke up over the Atlantic Ocean 73 seconds after liftoff. An O-ring in the right solid rocket booster failed. A jet of burning solid rocket fuel began escaping from the leak which cut a hole in the large, orange external fuel tank. The tank ruptured, the liquid hydrogen and oxygen mixed, a massive fireball erupted, and the orbiter was torn to pieces. Debris rained for several minutes afterward. The crew compartment remained intact. Any astronauts who remained alive after the disintegration of the orbiter died when the crew compartment impacted the ocean.
Bednorz & Müller discover high temperature superconductivity (1986)
Posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 12:02 am Eastern Time.
27 January 1986: Johannes Georg Bednorz & Karl Alexander Müller at the at the IBM Zürich Research Laboratory discover high temperature (Tc = 36 K) superconductivity in the copper containing ceramic (LaB)2CuO4.
- Possible highTc superconductivity in the Ba−La−Cu−O system. J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller. Zeitschrift für Physik B Condensed Matter. Vol. 64, No. 2 (June 1986): 189–193. doi:10.1007/BF01303701.
- Nobel Prize in Physics 1987 to Bednorz & Müller "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials", Nobel Foundation
Apollo 1 Disaster (1967)
Posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 12:01 am Eastern Time.
27 January 1967: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 command module during testing after a fire started. The command module was pressured with pure oxygen to 2 atmospheres making it an obvious fire hazard. Since the door was designed to open inward and the interior pressure was 1 atmosphere greater than the exterior, the door was held firmly shut. Toxic smoke asphyxiated the astronauts and the intense oxygen-fueled flames roasted them.
In memory
of
those who made the ultimate sacrifice
so others could reach for the starsAd astra per aspera
(A rough road leads to the stars)God speed to the crew
of
Apollo 1
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Thomas Edison receives a patent for the incandescent light bulb (1880)
Posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 12:00 am Eastern Time.
27 January 1880 : Thomas Edison receives patent for incandescent light bulb.
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- Patent 223,898
The traditional light bulb will soon disappear. What will we use as the icon for a brilliant idea in the future?
categories: electricity, history
Opportunity lands on Mars (2004)
Posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 12:01 am Eastern Time.
25 January 2004: Opportunity (a.k.a. Mars Exploration Rover B) landed in Meridiani Planum.
Last signal detected from Pioneer 10 (2003)
Posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2012 at 1:23 am Eastern Time.
Pioneer 10 was launched 2 March 1972 from Cape Canaveral on a three stage Atlas Centaur rocket. It visited Jupiter for a few days in December 1973 and was flung out of the solar system by the massive planet. After more than 30 years the venerable spacecraft sent its last signal to Earth on 22 January 2003. At last contact Pioneer 10 was 82 astronomical units away from the sun (more than twice the average distance from the sun to Pluto). The last detectable radio signal (which was too weak to be decipherable) took 11 hours and 20 minutes to reach the earth. Pioneer 10 is currently 105 astronomical units from the sun and is traveling at 12 km/s.
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- No condition is permanent.