1.
New Horizons
–
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASAs New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute, on January 19,2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28,2007, most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6,2014, New Horizons was brought online for the Pluto encounter. On January 15,2015, the New Horizons spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto, on July 14,2015, at 11,49 UTC, it flew 12,500 km above the surface of Pluto, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. On October 25,2016, at 21,48 UTC, the last of the recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons. Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69, expected to place on January 1,2019. Appointed as the principal investigator, Stern was described by Krimigis as the personification of the Pluto mission. New Horizons was based largely on Sterns work since Pluto 350, the New Horizons proposal was one of five that were officially submitted to NASA. It was later selected as one of two finalists to be subject to a concept study, in June 2001. In November 2001, New Horizons was officially selected for funding as part of the New Frontiers program. However, the new NASA Administrator appointed by the Bush Administration, Sean OKeefe, was not supportive of New Horizons, after an intense campaign to gain support for New Horizons, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey of 2003-2013 was published in the summer of 2002. New Horizons topped the list of projects considered the highest priority among the community in the medium-size category, ahead of missions to the Moon. Weiler stated that it was a result that administration was not going to fight, Alice Bowman became Mission Operations Manager. New Horizons is the first mission in NASAs New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than the Discovery missions, the cost of the mission is approximately $700 million over 15 years. The spacecraft was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the missions principal investigator is Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. After separation from the vehicle, overall control was taken by Mission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County. The science instruments are operated at Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center in Boulder, New Horizons was originally planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System
2.
Tombaugh Regio
–
Tombaugh Regio /ˈtɒmbaʊ ˈrɛdʒi. oʊ/, nicknamed The Heart after its shape, is the largest bright surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. It is just north of the equator, to the northeast of Cthulhu Regio and to the northwest of Krun Macula and its western lobe, a 1000 km-wide plain of nitrogen and other ices, is named Sputnik Planitia. The eastern lobe is thought to consist of high-albedo uplands coated by nitrogen transported through the atmosphere from Sputnik Planitia, some of this nitrogen ice then returns to Sputnik Planitia via glacial flow. It is named after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, Tombaugh Regio is a large, light-colored region about 1,590 km across. The two lobes of the feature are geologically distinct, the western lobe, Sputnik Planitia, is smoother than the eastern, and they are of slightly different colors. Early speculation was that the western lobe may be an impact crater filled with nitrogen snow. Bright spots within the region were initially speculated to be mountain peaks, photos, released on 15 July 2015, revealed 3,400 m mountains made of water ice in the feature, they also showed no craters in this same region. The surface of Sputnik Planitia is divided into polygonal convection cells and is less than 10 million years old, indicating that Pluto is geologically active. The feature had been identified as a spot for six decades prior to the New Horizons flyby. Over these six decades the spot had been observed to be dimming, Tombaugh Regio was first identified in the initial image of Pluto returned after the New Horizons probe recovered from an anomaly that temporarily sent it into safe mode. NASA initially referred to it as a heart in reference to its overall shape, on 15 July 2015, the region was named Tombaugh Regio by the New Horizons team in honor of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, regio being Latin for region. Some people find the feature also resembles the Disney character Pluto, the Walt Disney Company acknowledged this perceived likeness in a short animation. Geography of Pluto List of geological features on Pluto Media related to Tombaugh Regio at Wikimedia Commons
3.
Pluto
–
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered, Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was originally considered to be the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its planethood was questioned following the discovery of objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, which is 27% more massive than Pluto, was discovered and this led the International Astronomical Union to define the term planet formally in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet, Pluto is the largest and second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume but is less massive than Eris, like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has an eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units or AU from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance. Pluto has five moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos. Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. The IAU has not formalized a definition for binary dwarf planets, on July 14,2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pluto, on October 25,2016, at 05,48 pm ET, the last bit of data was received from New Horizons from its close encounter with Pluto on July 14,2015. In the 1840s, Urbain Le Verrier used Newtonian mechanics to predict the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analysing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Subsequent observations of Neptune in the late 19th century led astronomers to speculate that Uranuss orbit was being disturbed by another planet besides Neptune, by 1909, Lowell and William H. Pickering had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. Lowell and his observatory conducted his search until his death in 1916, unknown to Lowell, his surveys had captured two faint images of Pluto on March 19 and April 7,1915, but they were not recognized for what they were. There are fourteen other known prediscovery observations, with the oldest made by the Yerkes Observatory on August 20,1909. Percivals widow, Constance Lowell, entered into a legal battle with the Lowell Observatory over her late husbands legacy. Tombaughs task was to image the night sky in pairs of photographs, then examine each pair
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Tenzing Norgay
–
Tenzing Norgay OSN GM, born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer. Among the most famous climbers in history, he was the first individual known to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, there are conflicting accounts of Norgays early life. The account he gave in his autobiography, accepted for years, is that he was a Sherpa born and raised in Tengboche, Khumbu. In an interview with All India Radio in 1985, Tenzing Norgay said that his parents came from Tibet, Khumbu lies near Mount Everest, which the Tibetans and Sherpas call Chomolungma, which in Standard Tibetan means Holy Mother, or the goddess of the summit. Norgay was a Nepalese Buddhist, Buddhism is the religion of the Sherpas. His exact date of birth is unknown, but he knew it was in late May by the weather, after his ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. His year of birth, according to the Tibetan Calendar, was the Year of the Rabbit, Norgay was originally called Namgyal Wangdi, but as a child his name was changed on the advice of the head lama and founder of Rongbuk Monastery, Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. His father, a yak herder, was Ghang La Mingma, Norgay ran away from home twice in his teens, first to Kathmandu and later Darjeeling, India, at that time the starting point for most expeditions in eastern Himalaya. He was once sent to Tengboche Monastery to become a monk, at the age of 19, he eventually settled in the Sherpa community in Toonsong Busty in Darjeeling. Norgay received his first opportunity to join an Everest expedition when he was employed by Eric Shipton, as a 20-year-old his chance came when two of the others failed their medical tests. As a friend of Ang Tharkay, Norgay was quickly pushed forward, and his attractive smile caught the eye of Shipton, Norgay participated as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s. On the 1936 expedition, he worked with John Morris and he also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent. For a time in the early 1940s Norgay lived in the Princely State of Chitral as batman to a Major Chapman, Norgays first wife died during his tenure there and was buried there. In 1947, Norgay participated in a summit attempt of Everest. Canadian-born Earl Denman, Ange Dawa Sherpa, and Norgay entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain, Denman admitted defeat, and all three turned around and safely returned. In 1947, Norgay became a sirdar of a Swiss expedition for the first time, the expedition reached the main summit of Kedarnath at 22,769 feet in the western Garhwal Himalaya with Norgay being one of the summit party. Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay were able to reach a height of about 8,595 metres on the southeast ridge, the expedition opened up a new route on Everest that was successfully climbed the next year
6.
Hillary Montes
–
The Hillary Montes /ˈhɪləri ˈmɒntiːz/ are mountains that reach 1.6 km above the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto. They are located northwest of Norgay Montes in the southwest border area of Sputnik Planitia in the south of Tombaugh Regio, the Hillary Montes were first viewed by the New Horizons spacecraft on 14 July 2015, and announced by NASA on 24 July 2015. The Hillary Montes rise to 1.6 km high, about half as high as the Norgay Montes, the Hillary Montes are similar in height to that of the peak of Mount Sněžka, the highest mountain in the Czech Republic, above sea level. Other mountains of height are Mount Katahdin in Maine, USA. Geography of Pluto Geology of Pluto List of geological features on Pluto List of tallest mountains in the Solar System NASA Pluto factsheet NASA Official homepage New Horizons homepage
7.
Dwarf planet
–
A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes five dwarf planets, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, another hundred or so known objects in the Solar System are suspected to be dwarf planets. Individual astronomers recognize several of these, and in August 2011 Mike Brown published a list of 390 candidate objects, Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets. Only two of these bodies, Ceres and Pluto, have observed in enough detail to demonstrate that they actually fit the IAUs definition. The IAU accepted Eris as a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto and they subsequently decided that unnamed trans-Neptunian objects with an absolute magnitude brighter than +1 are to be named under the assumption that they are dwarf planets. The classification of bodies in other systems with the characteristics of dwarf planets has not been addressed. Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and other bodies between Mars and Jupiter which were for some decades considered to be planets. Between then and around 1851, when the number of planets had reached 23, astronomers started using the asteroid for the smaller bodies. With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine planets and it was roughly one-twentieth the mass of Mercury, which made Pluto by far the smallest planet. Although it was more than ten times as massive as the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. In the 1990s, astronomers began to find objects in the region of space as Pluto. Many of these shared several of Plutos key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects and this led some astronomers to stop referring to Pluto as a planet. Several terms, including subplanet and planetoid, started to be used for the now known as dwarf planets. By 2005, three trans-Neptunian objects comparable in size to Pluto had been reported and it became clear that either they would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified. Astronomers were also confident that more objects as large as Pluto would be discovered, Eris was discovered in January 2005, it was thought to be slightly larger than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the tenth planet. As a consequence, the became a matter of intense debate during the IAU General Assembly in August 2006. The IAUs initial draft proposal included Charon, Eris, and Ceres in the list of planets, dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres, and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits. The IAUs final Resolution 5A preserved this three-category system for the bodies orbiting the Sun
8.
Sputnik Planitia
–
Sputnik Planitia /ˈspʌtnɪk pləˈnɪʃiə/, originally Sputnik Planum, is a high-albedo ice-covered basin on Pluto, about 1,050 by 800 km in size. It lies mostly in the hemisphere, but extends across the equator. Much of it has a surface of irregular polygons separated by troughs, the polygons are on average about 33 km across. In some cases troughs are populated by blocky mountains or hills, Sputnik Planitia constitutes the western lobe of the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio. There appear to be wind streaks on the surface evidence of sublimation. The dark streaks are a few kilometers long and all aligned in the same direction, the basin also contains pits that have possibly formed by sublimation. Sputnik Planitia is named after Earths first artificial satellite, the planitia has no craters that were detectable by New Horizons, leading to the conclusion that its surface must be less than 10 million years old. The ice composing the basin is thought to consist primarily of ice, with smaller fractions of carbon monoxide and methane ice. At Plutos ambient temperature of 38 K, nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices are denser and much less rigid water ice, making glacial-like flows possible. Sputnik Planitia may have originated as a basin that subsequently collected volatile ices. Alternatively, it has suggested that the accumulation of ices in this location depressed the surface there. The accumulation of several kilometers of ice in the basin was in part a consequence of its higher surface pressure. The positive temperature gradient of Plutos atmosphere contributes to making a topographic depression a cold trap, a high seasonal thermal inertia of Plutos surface is an important driver of deposition of nitrogen ice at low latitudes. These latitudes receive less insolation than Plutos polar regions due to its high obliquity. However, other effects of an event could have also contributed to such an anomaly. A positive gravity anomaly could have caused polar wander, reorienting the spin axis of Pluto to put the planitia near the Pluto-Charon tidal axis, Sputnik Planitia is presently close to the anti-Charon point on Pluto, a result that has less than a 5% probability of arising by chance. Gradual freezing of such an ocean, in combination with polar wander, convection cells have about 100 m of vertical relief, with the highest points being at their centers. Modeling of nitrogen ice convection cells suggests a depth of one tenth their width, or 3–4 km for most of the planitia
9.
Spacecraft
–
A spacecraft is a vehicle, or machine designed to fly in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, on a sub-orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters space and then returns to the surface, without having gone into an orbit. For orbital spaceflights, spacecraft enter closed orbits around the Earth or around other celestial bodies, robotic spacecraft used to support scientific research are space probes. Robotic spacecraft that remain in orbit around a body are artificial satellites. Only a handful of interstellar probes, such as Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, orbital spacecraft may be recoverable or not. By method of reentry to Earth they may be divided in non-winged space capsules, Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, the launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments, while the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age. Apart from its value as a technological first, Sputnik 1 also helped to identify the upper atmospheric layers density and it also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Pressurized nitrogen in the satellites false body provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection, Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No. 1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR. The satellite travelled at 29,000 kilometers per hour, taking 96.2 minutes to complete an orbit and this altitude is called the Kármán line. In particular, in the 1940s there were several test launches of the V-2 rocket, as of 2016, only three nations have flown manned spacecraft, USSR/Russia, USA, and China. The first manned spacecraft was Vostok 1, which carried Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, there were five other manned missions which used a Vostok spacecraft. The second manned spacecraft was named Freedom 7, and it performed a sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961 carrying American astronaut Alan Shepard to an altitude of just over 187 kilometers, there were five other manned missions using Mercury spacecraft. Other Soviet manned spacecraft include the Voskhod, Soyuz, flown unmanned as Zond/L1, L3, TKS, China developed, but did not fly Shuguang, and is currently using Shenzhou. Except for the shuttle, all of the recoverable manned orbital spacecraft were space capsules. Manned space capsules The International Space Station, manned since November 2000, is a joint venture between Russia, the United States, Canada and several other countries, some reusable vehicles have been designed only for manned spaceflight, and these are often called spaceplanes. The first example of such was the North American X-15 spaceplane, the first reusable spacecraft, the X-15, was air-launched on a suborbital trajectory on July 19,1963. The first partially reusable spacecraft, a winged non-capsule, the Space Shuttle, was launched by the USA on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarins flight
10.
Nepal
–
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
11.
Edmund Hillary
–
Sir Edmund Percival Ed Hillary KG ONZ KBE was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest and they were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. TIME magazine named Hillary one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school. He made his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier and he served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator during World War II. Prior to the 1953 Everest expedition, Hillary had been part of the British reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 as well as an attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958 and he subsequently reached the North Pole, making him the first person to reach both poles and summit Everest. Following his ascent of Everest, Hillary devoted most of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, through his efforts, many schools and hospitals were built in Nepal. Hillary was born to Percival Augustus and Gertrude Hillary in Auckland, New Zealand and his family moved to Tuakau in 1920, after his father, who served at Gallipoli in the 15th Regiment, was allocated land there. Hillarys grandparents were early settlers in northern Wairoa in the century, having emigrated from Yorkshire. Hillary was educated at Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar School and he finished primary school two years early and at high school achieved average marks. Hillary was initially smaller than his peers there and very shy, so he took refuge in his books and his daily train journey to and from high school was over two hours each way, during which he regularly used the time to read. He gained confidence after he learned to box, at 16, his interest in climbing was sparked during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. Though gangly at 6 ft 5 in and uncoordinated, he found that he was strong and had greater endurance than many of his tramping companions. He studied mathematics and science at the Auckland University College and in 1939 completed his first major climb, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, with his brother Rex, Hillary became a beekeeper, a summer occupation that allowed him to pursue climbing in the winter. He joined the Radiant Living Tramping Club, where a holistic health philosophy developed by the health advocate Herbert Sutcliffe was taught, Hillary developed his love for the outdoors on tours with the club through the Waitakere Ranges. His interest in beekeeping later led Hillary to commission Michael Ayrton to cast a sculpture in the shape of honeycomb. This was placed in Hillarys New Zealand garden, where his bees took it over as a hive and filled it with honey and their young. Upon the outbreak of World War II, Hillary applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force but withdrew the application before it was considered, because he was harassed by religious conscience
12.
Earth
–
Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
13.
Mount Everest
–
Mount Everest, also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in China as Chomolungma/珠穆朗玛峰, is Earths highest mountain. Its peak is 8,848 metres above sea level, Mount Everest is in the Mahalangur Range. The international border between China and Nepal runs across Everests summit point and its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse,8,516 m, Nuptse,7,855 m, and Changtse,7,580 m. In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 8,840 m. The current official height of 8,848 m as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey, in 2005, China remeasured the height of the mountain and got a result of 8844.43 m. An argument regarding the height between China and Nepal lasted five years from 2005 to 2010, China argued it should be measured by its rock height which is 8,844 m but Nepal said it should be measured by its snow height 8,848 m. In 2010, an agreement was reached by both sides that the height of Everest is 8,848 m and Nepal recognises Chinas claim that the rock height of Everest is 8,844 m. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal and the other from the north in Tibet, as of 2016 there are well over 200 corpses on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks. The first recorded efforts to reach Everests summit were made by British mountaineers, with Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. Tragedy struck on the descent from the North Col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition, the Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the north ridge on 25 May 1960. In 1802, the British began the Great Trigonometric Survey of India to fix the locations, heights, starting in southern India, the survey teams moved northward using giant theodolites, each weighing 500 kg and requiring 12 men to carry, to measure heights as accurately as possible. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s, but Nepal was unwilling to allow the British to enter the country due to suspicions of political aggression, several requests by the surveyors to enter Nepal were turned down. The British were forced to continue their observations from Terai, a region south of Nepal which is parallel to the Himalayas, conditions in Terai were difficult because of torrential rains and malaria. Three survey officers died from malaria while two others had to retire because of failing health, nonetheless, in 1847, the British continued the survey and began detailed observations of the Himalayan peaks from observation stations up to 240 km distant
14.
Mount Fuji
–
Mount Fuji, located on Honshu Island, is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m. An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, Mount Fuji is one of Japans Three Holy Mountains along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japans Historic Sites and it was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22,2013. Per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries, UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan, in Shinto mythology, Kuninotokotachi is one of the two gods born from something like a reed that arose from the soil when the earth was chaotic. He is known by mythology to reside on top of Mount Fuji, Kuninotokotachi is described as a hitorigami and genderless in Kojiki, while as a male god in Nihon Shoki. Yoshida Kanetomo, the founder of the Yoshida Shintō sect, identified Kuninotokotachi with Amenominakanushi, the current kanji for Mount Fuji, 富 and 士, mean wealth or abundant and a man with a certain status respectively. The origin of the name Fuji is unclear, having no recording of it being first called by this name. A text of the 10th century, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, says that the name came from immortal, an early folk etymology claims that Fuji came from 不二, meaning without equal or nonpareil. Another claims that it came from 不尽, meaning neverending, a Japanese classical scholar in the Edo era, Hirata Atsutane, speculated that the name is from a word meaning, a mountain standing up shapely as an ear of a rice plant. It is also pointed that huchi means an old woman and ape is the word for fire, research on the distribution of place names that include fuji as a part also suggest the origin of the word fuji is in the Yamato language rather than Ainu. A Japanese toponymist Kanji Kagami argued that the name has the root as wisteria and rainbow. In English, the mountain is known as Mount Fuji, some sources refer to it as Fuji-san, Fujiyama or, redundantly, Mt. Fujiyama. Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as Fuji-san and this san is not the honorific suffix used with peoples names, such as Watanabe-san, but the Sino-Japanese reading of the character yama used in Sino-Japanese compounds. In Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization, the name is transliterated as Huzi, among the most renowned works are Hokusais 36 Views of Mount Fuji and his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, as well as Utagawa Hiroshiges similarly-titled 36 Views of Mount Fuji. The mountain is mentioned in Japanese literature throughout the ages and is the subject of many poems and it is thought that the first recorded ascent was in 663 by an anonymous monk. The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era, ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba. The shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo held yabusame in the area in the early Kamakura period, the first ascent by a foreigner was by Sir Rutherford Alcock in September 1868, from the foot of the mountain to the top in eight hours and three hours for the descent
15.
Zugspitze
–
The Zugspitze, at 2,962 m above sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the border between Germany and Austria runs over its western summit, south of the mountain is the Zugspitzplatt, a high karst plateau with numerous caves. On the flanks of the Zugspitze are three glaciers, including the two largest in Germany, the Northern Schneeferner with an area of 30.7 hectares, the third is the Southern Schneeferner which covers 8.4 hectares. The Zugspitze was first climbed on 27 August 1820 by Josef Naus, his assistant, Maier. One of the best known ridge routes in the Eastern Alps runs along the knife-edged Jubilee Ridge to the summit, linking the Zugspitze, the Hochblassen, for mountaineers there is plenty of nearby accommodation. On the western summit of the Zugspitze itself is the Münchner Haus, three cable cars run to the top of the Zugspitze. A rack railway, the Bavarian Zugspitze Railway, runs inside the northern flank of the mountain and ends on the Zugspitzplatt, the rack railway and the Eibsee Cable Car, the third cableway, transport an average of 500,000 people to the summit each year. In winter, nine ski lifts cover the ski area on the Zugspitzplatt, the weather station, opened in 1900, and the research station in the Schneefernerhaus are mainly used to conduct climate research. The Zugspitze belongs to the Wetterstein range of the Northern Limestone Alps, the border between Germany and Austria goes right over the mountain. There used to be a border checkpoint at the summit but, since Germany, the exact height of the Zugspitze was a matter of debate for quite a while. Given figures ranged from 2, 690–2,970 metres, the lounge at the new café is named 2962 for this reason. At 2,962 metres the Zugspitze is the highest mountain of the Zugspitze massif and this height is referenced to the Amsterdam Gauge and is given by the Bavarian State Office for Survey and Geoinformation. The same height is recorded against the Trieste Gauge used in Austria, originally the Zugspitze had three peaks, the east, middle and west summits. The only one that has remained in its form is the east summit. The middle summit fell victim to one of the cable car summit stations in 1930, in 1938 the west summit was blown up to create a building site for a planned flight control room for the Wehrmacht. Originally the height of the west summit was given as 2,964 m, the Zugspitze rises eleven kilometres southwest of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and just under six kilometres east of Ehrwald. The border between Germany and Austria runs over the west summit, thus the Zugspitze massif belongs to the German state of Bavaria, the municipalities responsible for it are Grainau and Ehrwald. To the south the Gaistal valley and its river, the Leutascher Ache, to the north at the foot of the Zugspitze is the lake of Eibsee
16.
Atmosphere of Pluto
–
The atmosphere of Pluto is the tenuous layer of gases surrounding Pluto. It consists mainly of nitrogen, with amounts of methane and carbon monoxide. It contains layered haze, probably consisting of compounds which form from these gases due to high-energy radiation. The atmosphere of Pluto is notable for its strong and not completely clear seasonal changes caused by peculiarities of the orbital and axial rotation of Pluto. Surface pressure of the atmosphere of Pluto, measured by New Horizons in 2015, is about 1 Pa, temperature on the surface is 40 to 60 K, but it quickly grows with altitude due to methane-generated greenhouse effect. Near the altitude 30 km it reaches 110 K, and then slowly decreases, Pluto is the only trans-Neptunian object with a known atmosphere. Its closest analog is the atmosphere of Triton, although in some aspects it resembles even the atmosphere of Mars, the atmosphere of Pluto has been studied since the 1980s by way of earth-based observation of occultations of stars by Pluto and spectroscopy. In 2015, it was studied from a distance by the spacecraft New Horizons. The main component of the atmosphere of Pluto is nitrogen, content of methane, according to measurements by New Horizons, is 0. 25%. For carbon monoxide, the Earth-based estimates are 0. 025–0. 15% and 0. 05–0. 075%, under influence of high-energy cosmic radiation, these gases react to form more complex compounds, including ethane, ethylene, acetylene, heavier hydrocarbons and nitriles and hydrogen cyanide. These compounds slowly precipitate on the surface, probably, they also include tholins, which are responsible for the brown color of Pluto. The most volatile compound of the atmosphere of Pluto is nitrogen, the second is carbon monoxide, the indicator of volatility is saturated vapor pressure. At temperature 40 K it is about 10 Pa for nitrogen,1 Pa for carbon monoxide and 0.001 Pa for methane and it quickly increases with temperature, and at 60 K approaches to 10000 Pa,3000 Pa and 10 Pa respectively. For heavier-than-methane hydrocarbons, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrogen cyanide, this pressure remains negligibly low, but actually concentration of, at least, methane, does not depends noticeably of height, longitude and time. But temperature dependence of volatility of methane and nitrogen suggest that concentration of methane will decrease during moving of Pluto further from the Sun, reasons of this discrepancy are unknown. It can be due to existence of separate patches of relatively clean methane ice, seasonal and orbital changes of insolation results in migration of surface ices, they sublimate in some places and condensate in another. According to some estimates, it gives meter-sized changes of their thickness and this results in appreciable changes of brightness and color of Pluto. Methane and carbon monoxide, despite their low abundance, are significant for thermal structure of the atmosphere, methane is a strong heating agent and carbon monoxide is a cooling one
17.
Geography of Pluto
–
The geography of Pluto entails the delineation and characterization of regions on Pluto. Plutonian geography is focused on what is called physical geography on Earth, that is. On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto, during its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed geographical measurements and observations of Pluto and its moons. Pluto may be defined as having retrograde rotation and a tilt of 60 degrees, or prograde rotation. Following the latter convention, the currently in daylight is the northern one. This is the used by the International Astronomical Union and the New Horizons team. However, older sources may define Plutos rotation as retrograde and therefore the sunlit side as the southern hemisphere, east and west are also swapped between the two conventions. The following names are names and nicknames, proposed by the New Horizons discovery team. They were taken from various deities or demons, some from ancient mythology and others from modern popular culture. Cthulhu Regio, nicknamed The Whale after its shape, is an elongated and it is 2,990 km long and is the largest dark feature on Pluto. Tombaugh Regio, nicknamed The Heart, is a large, light-colored region in the shape of a named after the discoverer of Pluto. Two lobes of the heart are distinct geological features sharing a bright appearance, the heart is about 1,590 km across. The region contains 3,400 m mountains made of ice, Hillary Montes and Norgay Montes. The lack of craters suggests that its there is less than 100 million years old. Subsequent data indicated that features near the edges of the region show evidence of ice flow such as glaciers, a series of semi-regularly spaced dark spots with irregular boundaries are nicknamed the Brass Knuckles. They average about 480 km in diameter and are located along the equator between the Heart and the tail of the Whale, the brass knuckles are separated from one another by tall uplands. There are also many canyons running through them and through the mountains that are hundreds of miles long. It does not appear as a ring in higher-resolution images, the prime meridian of Pluto is defined as the longitude facing Charon
18.
Geology of Pluto
–
The geology of Pluto consists of the characteristics of the surface, crust, and interior of Pluto. Because of Plutos distance from Earth, in-depth study from Earth is difficult, because of this, many details about Pluto remained unknown until 14 July 2015, when New Horizons flew through the Pluto system and began transmitting data back to Earth. Plutos surface is composed of more than 98 percent nitrogen ice, with traces of methane, the face of Pluto oriented toward Charon contains more methane ice, whereas the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice. Distribution of volatile ices is thought to be season-dependent and influenced more by solar insolation, Pluto is one of the most contrastive bodies in the Solar System, with as much contrast as Saturns moon Iapetus. The color varies between black, dark orange and white. Plutos color is similar to that of Io with slightly more orange. Plutos surface color has changed between 1994 and 2003, the polar region has brightened and the southern hemisphere has darkened. Plutos overall redness has also increased substantially between 2000 and 2002 and these rapid changes are probably related to seasonal condensation and sublimation of portions of Plutos atmosphere, amplified by Plutos extreme axial tilt and high orbital eccentricity. Sputnik Planitia appears to be composed of ices more volatile, softer and more dense than the bedrock of Pluto, including nitrogen, carbon monoxide. A polygonal convection cell structure is visible much of the planitia. No craters have been found, indicating that its surface must be less than 10 million years old, a number of mechanisms are proposed to explain the absence of craters including cryovolcanism, convective overturn, and viscous relaxation - processes that would erase negative topography. Glaciers of what is probably nitrogen ice can be seen flowing from the planitia into adjacent depressions, glaciers appear to be flowing back into the planitia through valleys from these eastern highlands. Mountains several kilometres high have been found along the southwestern and southern edges of Sputnik Planitia, water ice is the only ice detected on Pluto that is strong enough at Plutonian temperatures to support such heights. Cthulhu Regio and other areas have many craters and signatures of methane ice. The dark red color is thought to be due to falling out of Plutos atmosphere. The mid-northern latitudes display a variety of terrain reminiscent of the surface of Triton, a polar cap consisting of methane ice diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice is somewhat darker and redder. These icy ridges were identified as penitentes in a January 2017 Nature paper by Dr. John Moores, penitentes are icy depressions formed by erosion and surrounded by tall spires. Pluto is the planetary body other than Earth on which penitentes have been identified
19.
Astronomy Picture of the Day
–
Astronomy Picture of the Day is a website provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University. According to the website, Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, the photograph does not necessarily correspond to a celestial event on the exact day that it is displayed, and images are sometimes repeated. However, the pictures and descriptions often relate to current events in astronomy, the text has several hyperlinks to more pictures and websites for more information. Past images are stored in the APOD Archive, with the first image appearing on June 16,1995 and this initiative has received support from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and MTU. The images are sometimes authored by people or organizations outside NASA, when APOD began it received only 14 page views on its first day. As of 2012 it had received over a billion image views, APOD is also translated into 21 languages daily. APOD was presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 1996 and its practice of using hypertext was analyzed in a paper in 2000. It received a Scientific American Sci/Tech Web Award in 2001, in 2002, the website was featured in an interview with Nemiroff on CNN Saturday Morning News. In 2003, the two published a book titled The Universe,365 Days from Harry N. Abrams. APOD was the Featured Collection in the November 2004 issue of D-Lib Magazine, during the United States federal government shutdown of 2013, APOD continued its service on mirror sites. Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff and Dr. Jerry T
20.
NASA
–
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
21.
YouTube
–
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
22.
The Christian Science Monitor
–
It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2011, the print circulation was 75,052, the Monitor is a newspaper that covers international and United States current events. The paper includes a daily feature on The Home Forum page. In 2008 the Monitor discontinued its print version to focus on web-based publishing, replacing its daily print edition with a weekly news magazine with an international focus. Since late 2013, the Editor-in-chief has been Marshall Ingwerson, despite its name, the Monitor does not claim to be a religious-themed paper, and says it does not promote the doctrine of its patron church. However, at its founder Eddys request, a religious article has appeared in every issue of the Monitor. Eddy also required the inclusion of Christian Science in the papers name, in addition, Joseph Pulitzers New York World was consistently critical of Eddy, and this, along with a derogatory article in McClures, furthered Eddys decision to found her own media outlet. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some time upon the body. Eddy declared that the Monitors mission should be to no man. The Monitor was for several decades published in form but in 1975 switched to tabloid format. The papers overall circulation has ranged widely, from a peak of over 223,000 in 1970 and these developments also presaged administrative moves to scale back the print newspaper in favor of expansions into radio, a magazine, shortwave broadcasting, and television. Expenses, however, rapidly outpaced revenues, contradicting predictions by church directors, on the brink of bankruptcy, the board was forced to close the broadcast programs in 1992. The paper has been known for avoiding sensationalism, producing a brand of nonhysterical journalism. Monitor staff have been the recipients of seven Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2002,1950, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, Edmund Stevens, for his series of 43 articles written over a three-year residence in Moscow entitled, This Is Russia Uncensored. 1967, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, R. John Hughes, For his thorough reporting of Indonesias attempted Transition to the New Order in 1965,1968, Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, Howard James, for his series of articles, Crisis in the Courts. 1969, Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, Robert Cahn, for his inquiry into the future of the United States national parks and the methods that may help to preserve them. 1996, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, David Rohde, for his persistent on-site reporting of the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in the Srebrenica Genocide. S, senate Committee led by Norm Coleman of personally profiting from corruption within the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. The Monitor investigated the matter, concluding that the documents were almost certainly forgeries, in 2006, Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad, and released safely after 82 days
23.
PBS NewsHour
–
As the nations first hour-long nightly news broadcast, the program is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events. Throughout their tenure, Ifill and Woodruff were the first and only all-female anchor team of a nightly news program on broadcast television. The PBS NewsHour originates from WETAs studios in Arlington County, Virginia with additional facilities in San Francisco and it is a collaboration between WNET, WETA-TV, and fellow PBS member television stations KQED in San Francisco, KETC in St. Louis and WTTW in Chicago. The NewsHour Weekend is produced at the Tisch WNET studios on Lincoln Center, in 1973, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer teamed up to cover the United States Senate Watergate hearings for PBS. The two earned an Emmy Award for their unprecedented gavel-to-gavel coverage, less than 1½ months later on December 1,1975, the program was renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and began to air on PBS stations nationwide. Most editions employed a two-anchor, two-city format, with MacNeil based in New York City, Liberty Media bought a 67% controlling equity stake in MacNeil/Lehrer Productions in 1994, but MacNeil and Lehrer retained editorial control. Robert MacNeil retired from the program on October 20,1995, accordingly, the program was renamed The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer three days later on October 23. The NewsHour won a Peabody Award in 2003 for the feature report Jobless Recovery, on May 17,2006, the program underwent its first major change in presentation in years, adopting a new graphics package and a reorchestrated version of the shows theme music. The program also introduced a new set and upconverted its existing graphics package to HD, on May 11,2009, PBS announced that the program would be revamped on December 7 of that year under a revised title as the PBS NewsHour. The overhaul was described by Jim Lehrer as the first phase in his move toward retirement. Lehrer formally ended his tenure as an anchor of the program in June 2011. He continued to anchor on Fridays afterward, when he usually leads the political analysis segment with Mark Shields. On August 6,2013, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff were named as co-anchors, the two shared anchor duties on the Monday through Thursday editions, with Woodruff solo anchoring on Fridays due to Ifills duties as host of the political discussion program Washington Week. Plans for an edition of PBS NewsHour had been considered as early as March 2013. MacNeil/Lehrer Productions announced in a letter to the shows staffers on October 8,2013, the transfer was approved by the WETA board of trustees on June 17,2014, and took effect on July 1. At that time, production of the program was taken over by NewsHour Productions, LLC, WETA also acquired MacNeil/Lehrer Productions archives, documentaries, and projects, though not the companys name. PBS NewsHour Weekend was not affected by the transfer and continues to be produced by WNET. The program is notable for being shown on public television, as such, there are no interruptions during the program to run advertisements
24.
Stuff.co.nz
–
Stuff. co. nz is a New Zealand news website published by Fairfax Digital, a division of Fairfax New Zealand Ltd, a subsidiary of Australian company Fairfax Media Ltd. It is also a web portal to other Fairfax websites, as of June 2012, the website had an Alexa rank in New Zealand of 8, the sites main competitor, The New Zealand Herald website, had a rank of 9. The site statistics for April 2012 were 4.9 million unique browsers, the development of Stuff was supported and governed by, the INL Board, Mike Robson, INL CEO, and Don Higgins, Corporate Development Manager. Mark Wierzbicki, INL Internet Business Manager, lead development and ongoing management of the Stuff site, advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi conceived the name Stuff, and INL had to buy the domain name from a cyber squatter. In its first month, the site had 120,000 unique visitors, at the time, Mark Wierzbicki, described the name as a copywriters dream, although he conceded that its not without risk, especially if we stuff up. The start up website was built by a group of companies in Wellington led by project managers Bill Alp and Will Everitt. On 30 June 2003, INL sold its assets including The Dominion Post, The Press. Fairfax upgraded the website in December 2006, and again on 4 March 2009, the first mobile phone news service from Stuff began in 2003, in a partnership with Vodafone New Zealand. On 21 April 2009, Stuff launched a mobile site. For larger news events, the site creates a dedicated section, such as for the Bain family murders retrial. During the trial of Clayton Weatherston, press. co. nz, the article was quickly withdrawn, and Fairfax executive editor Paul Thompson said it was a mistake we take very seriously. The site has won awards including the Newspaper Publishers Association awards Best News Website for 2010 and 2011. The earliest articles still available on Stuff are from around August 2007, on 17 April 2013, to celebrate the passing of same-sex marriage in New Zealand, the colour of the Stuff logo was changed from black to the colours associated with the pride flag. The editor of Stuff at the time, Mark Stevens, openly declared his support in August 2012, Media of New Zealand Official website Archivestuff
25.
Television New Zealand
–
Television New Zealand, Limited, more commonly referred to as TVNZ, is a government-owned national broadcaster broadcasting in New Zealand and parts of the Pacific region. Although the network identifies as a national, part-public broadcaster, it is fully commercially funded and this began the battle for ratings with the only real rival MediaWorks New Zealand, which currently operates channels TV3, Bravo, and The Edge TV. However, the company maintains a number of transmission advantages due to their long standing relationship with the state-owned sister company Kordia. Its former channels include TVNZ Kidzone, TVNZ Heartland, TVNZ U, TVNZ7, TVNZ6, the TVNZ board is appointed by Minister of Broadcasting Amy Adams. Members are, the chairman Sir John Anderson KBE, Anne Blackburn, Bryan Gould CNZM, Sir John Goulter, KNZM, JP, June McCabe, approximately 90% of TVNZs revenue is from commercial activity. The remainder of its funding comes from government funding agencies, TVNZ was created in 1980, through the merger of Television One and South Pacific Television. Until 1988, it was paired with Radio New Zealand as the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, in 1989, TVNZ moved to a new television centre in central Auckland. Broadcasting in New Zealand was deregulated in 1989, the Labour-led government under Helen Clark from 1999 to 2008 pursued a programme of public broadcasting reforms. New Zealands wide-ranging adoption of policies in the mid-1980s and 1990s had large sections of the state sector privatised. As a state owned enterprise, TVNZ enjoyed enormous commercial success, the Clark governments highest profile broadcasting reform to date was the restructuring of TVNZ as a Crown Entity in 2003. This introduced a dual remit whereby the broadcaster had to maintain its performance while simultaneously implementing a new public service Charter. The TVNZ Charter would require the negotiation and reconciliation of potentially contradictory commercial, the final version of the TVNZ Charter included a range of public service objectives and expectations. TVNZ continues to pay dividends to the Crown, however, from 2006 until 2009 TVNZ received $15.11 million each year from Government to assist it with fulfilling Charter obligations. There was much debate about the secrecy surrounding funding allocations. The allocation of $5 million toward coverage of the 2008 Olympics, in 2009 the Government gave control of that funding to funding agency NZ On Air. NZ On Air announced the creation of the contestable Platinum Fund in April 2009, setting aside the $15.11 million for high quality drama, documentary and other programme types. Following the election of a National Party-led government under John Key in 2008, there is much debate on the future of TVNZ, which focuses on the nature of public service broadcasting and its commercial role. An example was in a memo called A More Public Broadcaster written by outgoing Chief Executive Ian Fraser to the board of TVNZ in October 2005, was obtained and released by Green MP Sue Kedgley
26.
Space.com
–
Space. com is a space and astronomy news website. Its stories are syndicated to other media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo. Space. com was founded by former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and Rich Zahradnik, at that time, Dobbs owned a sizeable share of the company, and, in an unexpected move, left CNN later that year to become Space. coms chief executive officer. The move came as a surprise to many and was the source of media speculation. The company struggled to turn a profit in its days. Co-founder Rich Zahradnik had left his position as president less than two months after the start of the company, former astronaut Sally Ride took his place, as it expanded, it acquired other web sites such as Starport. com and Explorezone. com. It also acquired Sienna Software and Space News, despite some growth, Space. com was never able to achieve what Dobbs had hoped for and in 2001, he returned to CNN. He remains on its board and still owns a minority stake, Space. com has enjoyed the participation of several key space-related public figures, Neil Armstrong, Alexei Leonov, Eugene A. Cernan, and Thomas Stafford. In 2003, for its coverage of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in May 2004, Space. coms parent company changed its name from Space. com to Imaginova and in 2009 sold Space. com and other properties to Purch, an online publishing company. Media Life Magazine 2 January 2001 Imaginova. com About Us Space. com ouramazingplanet. com
27.
National Geographic Society
–
The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D. C. United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world and its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. In partnership with 21st Century Fox, the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website that features extra content and worldwide events, the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge. The Society believes in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world, National Geographic is governed by a board of trustees, whose 21 members include distinguished educators, business executives, former government officials and conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds research and exploration. National Geographic maintains a museum for the public in its Washington and its Education Foundation gives grants to education organizations and individuals to improve geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has awarded more than 11,000 grants for scientific research, National Geographic has retail stores in Washington, D. C. The locations outside of the United States are operated by Worldwide Retail Store S. L and it also publishes other magazines, books, school products, maps, and Web and film products in numerous languages and countries. National Geographics various media properties reach more than 280 million people monthly, the National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel. After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27, Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, succeeded him in 1897. Bell and Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership, the current National Geographic Society president and CEO is Gary E. Knell. The chairman of the board of trustees is John Fahey, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine is Susan Goldberg. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, a chairman of the Society board of trustees received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his leadership in geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D. C. was one of the first buildings to receive a Green certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in October 2006 in Oviedo, in 2013 the society was investigated for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to their close association with an Egyptian government official responsible for antiquities. This new, for-profit corporation, will own National Geographic and other magazines, as reported by The Guardian, a spokesman for National Geographic in a November 2,2015 e-mail statement, briefly discussed the rationale for the staff reductions as part of the. Process of reorganizing in order to move forward following the closing the National Geographic Partners deal. Additional specifics were provided to Photo District News by M. J. Jacobsen, National Geographic’s SVP of communications, similar to the contents of a formal announcement by the two companies
28.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
29.
Vucub-Came Macula
–
Vucub-Came is one of the Brass Knuckles, a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto. It is named after Wuquub Kameh Seven Death, one of the Quiché death gods in the Popol Vuh, Vucub-Came Macula is the fourth-largest dark spot on Pluto. Its surface is covered with tholins which give Vucub-Came its brown color, the dark spot is surrounded with tall uplands. Extensive fault systems in this area have formed deep canyons running roughly north–south
30.
Coleta de Dados Colles
–
The Coleta de Dados Colles are a cluster of hills on the smooth plains of Sputnik Planitia on Pluto. They actually represent blocks of ice floating in the denser nitrogen ice of the planitia. The hills were named in July 28,2015 by the research team of the New Horizons mission after the first Brazilian satellite. So, the name means Data Collecting Colles. The name has yet to be recognized by the IAU, um satélite brasileiro em Plutão Primeiro satélite nacional nomeia região em Plutão
31.
Luna Linea
–
The geological features on Pluto are being identified by scientists working with data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The International Astronomical Union has determined that the names for these features will be chosen from the themes, Names for the underworld from the worlds mythologies. Gods, goddesses, and dwarfs associated with the underworld, heroes and other explorers of the underworld. Writers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper belt, scientists and engineers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper belt. The following is a list of names chosen by the New Horizons team. Not all of the names correspond with the themes listed above, a cavus is a hollow or steep-sided depression. One cavus has been identified on Pluto thus far, it is named after a mythological underworld, Plutonian colles are being named after spacecraft that operated in Earth orbit. Plutonian craters are being named after scientists and other associated with the study of Pluto. Plutonian dorsa are being named after underworlds in mythology, a fossa is a ditch-like feature. Plutonian fossae are being named after figures associated with underworld myths, a linea is an elongated marking. Plutonian lineae are being named after space probes, Plutonian maculae are being named after underworld creatures from fiction and mythology. Plutonian montes are being named after explorers and adventurers, a planum is a plateau or high plain. One was initially identified on Pluto, but it has since been recognized to be a planitia, a planitia is a low plain, distinct from plana as they are located on lower terrain. A regio is a geographically distinct from its surroundings. Plutonian regiones are being named after underworld spirits in fiction and mythology, Plutonian rupēs are being named after explorers. A terra is an extensive landmass, Plutonian terrae are being named after space probes. The lone Plutonian vallis identified thus far is named after an explorer, geography of Pluto Geology of Pluto List of geological features on Charon
32.
Moons of Pluto
–
The dwarf planet Pluto has five moons down to a detection limit of about 1 km in diameter. In order of distance from Pluto, they are Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Charon, the largest of the five moons, is mutually tidally locked with Pluto, and is massive enough that Pluto–Charon is sometimes considered a double dwarf planet. The innermost and largest moon, Charon, was discovered by James Christy on 22 June 1978 and this led to a substantial revision in estimates of Plutos size, which had previously assumed that the observed mass and reflected light of the system were all attributable to Pluto alone. The International Astronomical Union officially named these moons Nix and Hydra, Styx, announced on 7 July 2012, was discovered while looking for potential hazards for New Horizons. Charon is about half the diameter of Pluto and is so massive that the barycenter lies between them, approximately 960 km above Plutos surface. Charon and Pluto are also locked, so that they always present the same face toward each other. The IAU General Assembly in August 2006 considered a proposal that Pluto and Charon be reclassified as a double planet, but the proposal was abandoned. Plutos four small moons orbit Pluto at two to four times the distance of Charon, ranging from Styx at 42,700 kilometres to Hydra at 64,800 kilometres from the barycenter of the system and they have nearly circular prograde orbits in the same orbital plane as Charon. All are much smaller than Charon, Nix and Hydra, the two larger, are roughly 42 and 55 kilometers on their longest axis respectively, and Styx and Kerberos are 7 and 12 kilometers respectively. The Pluto system is compact and largely empty. Moons could potentially orbit Pluto at up to 53% of the Hill radius, for example, Psamathe orbits Neptune at 40% of the Hill radius. An intense search conducted by New Horizons confirmed that no larger than 4.5 km in diameter exist at the distances up to 180,000 km from Pluto. Further information is expected as more data from the New Horizons flyby is sent back to Earth. The orbits of the moons are confirmed to be circular and coplanar, with inclinations differing less than 0. 4°, as seen from Earth, these circular orbits appear foreshortened into ellipses depending on Plutos position. The discovery of Nix and Hydra suggested that Pluto could have a ring system, small-body impacts can create debris that can form into a ring system. However, data from a survey by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, by occultation studies. Styx, Nix, and Hydra are thought to be in a 3-body orbital resonance with orbital periods in a ratio of 18,22,33, the ratios should be exact when orbital precession is taken into account. This means that in a recurring cycle there are 11 orbits of Styx for every 9 of Nix and 6 of Hydra, putting Nix and Hydra into a simple 2,3 resonance
.jpg)