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Dawn Journal | June 29, 2015
Bright Spots Aren't the Only Mysteries on Dwarf Planet Ceres
Dear Evidawnce-Based Readers,
Dawn is continuing to unveil a Ceres of mysteries at the first dwarf planet discovered. The spacecraft has been extremely productive, returning a wealth of photographs and other scientific measurements to reveal the nature of this exotic alien world of rock and ice. First glimpsed more than 200 years ago as a dot of light among the stars, Ceres is the only dwarf planet between the sun and Neptune.
Dawn has been orbiting Ceres every 3.1 days at an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). As described last month, the probe aimed its powerful sensors at the strange landscape throughout each long, slow passage over the side of Ceres facing the sun. Meanwhile, Ceres turned on its axis every nine hours, presenting itself to the ambassador from Earth. On the half of each revolution when Dawn was above ground that was cloaked in the darkness of night, it pointed its main antenna to that planet far, far away and radioed its precious findings to eager Earthlings (although the results will be available for others throughout the cosmos as well). Dawn began this second mapping campaign (also known as "survey orbit") on June 5, and tomorrow it will complete its eighth and final revolution.
The spacecraft made most of its observations by looking straight down at the terrain directly beneath it. During portions of its first, second and fourth orbits, however, Dawn peered at the limb of Ceres against the endless black of space, seeing the sights from a different perspective to gain a better sense of the lay of the land.
And what marvels Dawn has beheld! How can you not be mesmerized by the luminous allure of the famous bright spots? They are not, in fact, a source of light, but for a reason that remains elusive, the ground there reflects much more sunlight than elsewhere. Still, it is easy to imagine them as radiating a light all their own, summoning space travelers from afar, beckoning the curious and the bold to venture closer in return for an attractive reward. And that is exactly what we will do, as we seek the rewards of new knowledge and new insights into the cosmos.
Although scientists have not yet determined what minerals are there, Dawn will gather much more data. As summarized in this table, our explorer will map Ceres again from much closer during the course of its orbital mission. New bright areas have shown up in other locations too, in some places as relatively small spots, in others as larger areas (as in the photo below), and all of them will come into sharper focus when Dawn descends further.
In the meantime, you can register your opinion for what the bright spots are. Join more than 100 thousand others who have voted for an explanation for this enigma. Of course, Ceres will be the ultimate arbiter, and nature rarely depends upon public opinion, but the Dawn project will consider sending the results of the poll to Ceres, courtesy of our team member on permanent assignment there.
In addition to the bright spots, Dawn's views from its present altitude have included a wide range of other intriguing sights, as one would expect on a world of more than one million square miles (nearly 2.8 million square kilometers). There are myriad craters excavated by objects falling from space, inevitable scars from inhabiting the main asteroid belt for more than four billion years, even for the largest and most massive resident there.
The craters exhibit a wide range of appearances, not only in size but also in how sharp and fresh or how soft and aged they look. Some display a peak at the center. A crater can form from such a powerful punch that the hard ground practically melts and flows away from the impact site. Then the material rebounds, almost as if it sloshes back, while already cooling and then solidifying again. The central peak is like a snapshot, preserving a violent moment in the formation of the crater. By correlating the presence or absence of central peaks with the sizes of the craters, scientists can infer properties of Ceres' crust, such as how strong it is. Rather than a peak at the center, some craters contain large pits, depressions that may be a result of gasses escaping after the impact. (Craters elsewhere in the solar system, including on Vesta and Mars, also have pits.)
Dawn also has spied many long, straight or gently curved canyons. Geologists have yet to determine how they formed, and it is likely that several different mechanisms are responsible. For example, some might turn out to be the result of the crust of Ceres shrinking as the heat and other energy accumulated upon formation gradually radiated into space. When the behemoth slowly cooled, stresses could have fractured the rocky, icy ground. Others might have been produced as part of the devastation when a space rock crashed, rupturing the terrain.
Ceres shows other signs of an active past rather than that of a static chunk of inert material passing the eons with little notice. Some areas are less densely cratered than others, suggesting that there are geological processes that erase the craters. Indeed, some regions look as if something has flowed over them, as if perhaps there was mud or slush on the surface.
In addition to evidence of aging and renewal, some powerful internal forces have uplifted mountains. One particularly striking structure is a steep cone that juts three miles (five kilometers) high in an otherwise relatively smooth area, looking to an untrained (but transfixed) eye like a volcanic cone, a familiar sight on your home planet (or, at least, on mine). No other isolated, prominent protuberance has been spotted on Ceres.
It is too soon for scientists to understand the intriguing geology of this ancient world, but the prolific adventurer is providing them with the information they will use. The bounty from this second mapping phase includes more than 1,600 pictures covering essentially all of Ceres, well over five million spectra in visible and infrared wavelengths and hundreds of hours of gravity measurements.
The spacecraft has performed its ambitious assignments quite admirably. Only a few deviations from the very elaborate plans occurred. On June 15 and 27, during the fourth and eighth flights over the dayside, the computer in the combination visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) detected an unexpected condition, and it stopped collecting data. When the spacecraft's main computer recognized the situation, it instructed VIR to close its protective cover and then power down. The unit dutifully did so. Also on June 27, about three hours before VIR's interruption, the camera's computer experienced something similar.
Most of the time that Dawn points its sensors at Ceres, it simultaneously broadcasts through one of its auxiliary radio antennas, casting a very wide but faint signal in the general direction of Earth. (As Dawn progresses in its orbit, the direction to Earth changes, but the spacecraft is equipped with three of these auxiliary antennas, each pointing in a different direction, and mission controllers program it to switch antennas as needed.) The operations team observed what had occurred in each case and recognized there was no need to take immediate action. The instruments were safe and Dawn continued to carry out all of its other tasks.
When Dawn subsequently flew to the nightside of Ceres and pointed its main antenna to Earth, it transmitted much more detailed telemetry. As engineers and scientists continue their careful investigations, they recognize that in many ways, these events appear very similar to ones that have occurred at other times in the mission.
Four years ago, VIR's computer reset when Dawn was approaching Vesta, and the most likely cause was deemed to be a cosmic ray strike. That's life in deep space! It also reset twice in the survey orbit phase at Vesta. The camera reset three times in the first three months of the low altitude mapping orbit at Vesta.
Even with the glitches in this second mapping orbit, Dawn's outstanding accomplishments represent well more than was originally envisioned or written into the mission's scientific requirements for this phase of the mission. For those of you who have not been to Ceres or aren't going soon (and even those of you who want to plan a trip there of your own), you can see what Dawn sees by going to the image gallery.
Although Dawn already has revealed far, far more about Ceres in the last six months than had been seen in the preceding two centuries of telescopic studies, the explorer is not ready to rest on its laurels. It is now preparing to undertake another complex spiral descent, using its sophisticated ion propulsion system to maneuver to a circular orbit three times as close to the dwarf planet as it is now. It will take five weeks to perform the intricate choreography needed to reach the third mapping altitude, starting tomorrow night. You can keep track of the spaceship's flight as it propels itself to a new vantage point for observing Ceres by visiting the mission status page or following it on Twitter @NASA_Dawn.
As Dawn moves closer to Ceres, Earth will be moving closer as well. Earth and Ceres travel on independent orbits around the sun, the former completing one revolution per year (indeed, that's what defines a year) and the latter completing one revolution in 4.6 years (which is one Cerean year). (We have discussed before why Earth revolves faster in its solar orbit, but in brief it is because being closer to the sun, it needs to move faster to counterbalance the stronger gravitational pull.) Of course, now that Dawn is in a permanent gravitational embrace with Ceres, where Ceres goes, so goes Dawn. And they are now and forever more so close together that the distance between Earth and Ceres is essentially equivalent to the distance between Earth and Dawn.
On July 22, Earth and Dawn will be at their closest since June 2014. As Earth laps Ceres, they will be 1.94 AU (180 million miles, or 290 million kilometers) apart. Earth will race ahead on its tight orbit around the sun, and they will be more than twice as far apart early next year.
Although Dawn communicates regularly with Earth, it left that planet behind nearly eight years ago and will keep its focus now on its new residence. With two very successful mapping campaigns complete, its next priority is to work its way down through Ceres' gravitational field to an altitude of about 900 miles (less than 1,500 kilometers). With sharper views and new kinds of observations (including stereo photography), the treasure trove obtained by this intrepid extraterrestrial prospector will only be more valuable. Everyone who longs for new understandings and new perspectives on the cosmos will grow richer as Dawn continues to pioneer at a mysterious and distant dwarf planet.
Dawn is 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) from Ceres. It is also 2.01 AU (187 million miles, or 301 million kilometers) from Earth, or 785 times as far as the moon and 1.98 times as far as the sun today. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take 33 minutes to make the round trip.
Dr. Marc D. Rayman
10:00 p.m. PDT June 29, 2015
Earth Right Now | June 15, 2015
Because There Are No Spare Earths
"Do we think about the aerosol propellant in our underarm deodorant every day?" Gavin Schmidt, climatologist and director of The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), asked me. "I don't think we even have aerosols anymore," I answered, wondering where he was going with this.
"That's the point," he continued, "and nobody cares. Nobody cares where your energy comes from; nobody cares whether your car is electric or petrol. People confuse energy supply with where the energy is supplied from." He was trying to make the point that as long as people have the things they want, it doesn't matter, to the vast majority of us, how we get them. This means that as long as the light switch still turns on the lights, most people would barely notice if we were to shift from burning fossil fuels to energy sources with less impact on Earth's climate (just as people don't notice that ozone-depleting propellants aren't used in aerosol cans any more).
I was eager to speak with Dr. Schmidt because of his passion for communicating climate science to public audiences on top of his work as a climatologist. Schmidt is a co-founder and active blogger at Real Climate and was also awarded the inaugural Climate Communications Prize, by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2011. "My goal in communicating," he explained, "is a totally futile effort to raise the level of the conversation so that we actually discuss the things that matter."
Since the mere mention of a computer model can cause an otherwise normal person's face to glaze over, I thought Schmidt, a leader in climate simulations and Earth system modeling, would be the ideal candidate to explain one of the most important, yet probably one of the most misunderstood, instruments scientists have for studying Earth's climate. See, people commonly confuse climate and weather, and this confusion is perhaps most pronounced when it comes to understanding the difference between a weather forecast and a climate simulation.
Numerical laboratory
Schmidt's work routine is much like that of any other scientist. He spends a few months preparing experiments, then a few more months conducting the experiments, then a few more months refining and improving the experiments, then a few more months going back and looking at fine details, then a few more months … you get the idea. Climate scientists use complex computer simulations as numerical laboratories to conduct experiments because we don't have a bunch of spare Earths just lying around. These simulations model Earth's conditions as precisely as possible. "A single run can take three months on up on super computers," Schmidt said. "For really long runs, it can take a year." NASA scientists can reserve time for High-End Computing Capability at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility and/or the NASA Center for Climate Simulation to run simulations. Like an astronomer who reserves time on a large telescope to run her experiments, Schmidt books time on these computers to run his.
Schmidt asks the computer to calculate the weather in 20-minute time steps and see how it changes. Every 20 minutes it updates its calculation over hundred-year or even thousand-year periods in the past or the future. "The models that we run process about three to four years of simulation, going through every 20 minute time step, every real day."
A typical climate simulation code is large, as in 700,000 lines of computer code large. For comparison, the Curiosity Rover required about 500,000 lines of code to autonomously descend safely on Mars, a planet 140 million miles away with a signal time delay of about 14 minutes. The size of a typical app, such as our Earth Now mobile app, is just over 6,000 lines of code. Climate simulations require such a large quantity of code because Earth's climate is so extraordinarily complex. And, according to Schmidt, "Complexity is quite complex."
Like a scientist who runs an experiment in a science lab, climate modelers want code that's consistent from one experiment to another. So they spend most of their time developing that code, looking at code, improving code and fixing bugs.
The model output is compared to data and observations from the real world to build in credibility. "We rate the predictions on whether or not they're skillful; on whether we can demonstrate they are robust." When models are tested against the real world, we get a measure of how skillful the model is at reproducing things that have already happened. Then we can be more confident about the accuracy in predicting what's going to happen.
Schmidt wants to find out where the models have skill and where they provide useful information. For example, they're not very useful for tornado statistics, but they're extremely useful on global mean temperature. According to Schmidt, the credible and consistently reliable predictions include ones that involve adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. "You consistently get increases in temperature and those increases are almost always greater over land than they are in the ocean. They're always larger in the Arctic than in the mid-latitudes and always more in the northern hemisphere than the southern, particularly Antarctica. Those are very, very robust results."
Lately, his team has been working on improving the code for sea ice dynamics to include the effects of brine pockets (very salty fluid within the ice matrix) as well as the wind moving the ice around. For example, to understand the timeline for Arctic sea ice loss, his team has to work on the different bits of code for the wind, the temperature, the ocean and the water vapor and include the way all these pieces intersect in the real world. After you improve the code, you can see the impact of those improvements.
I asked Schmidt what people's behavior would look like "if they understood that burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide, which causes global warming." He replied, "People would start focusing on policies and processes that would reduce the amount of fossil fuels without ruining the economy or wrecking society." Then he added, "I think, I hope! that people will get it before it's too late."
I hope so, too.
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Earth Right Now | June 8, 2015
Jason-3 and the Argonauts
Bring out the trumpeters! We're preparing for another satellite launch. Woohoo! This time it's Jason-3, an altimetry mission that will observe sea surface topography from space. It's a legacy mission that continues the 23-year record of global sea level measurements started by TOPEX/Poseidon and carried on by Jason-1 and -2.
When I think of the word "legacy," I normally become all melancholy 'n' stuff, because the word reminds me of what I was doing when those previous satellites went up and of all the people, science and stories that have influenced my life since. So this morning, on my drive to work, I tuned in to a '70s music radio station to funky disco my way out of my melancholy funkiness. (Take that, '80s music heads!)
But no, really, TOPEX/Poseidon was totally cool. (The acronym "TOPEX" comes from "TOPography EXperiment" and Poseidon is the Greek god of the sea; "Jason" is from Jason and the Argonauts, also from Greek mythology.) It launched in 1992 and was the first revolutionary precision oceanography satellite. It transformed the way we study the ocean, because the view from space is the only way to truly observe the vastness of the ocean on a global scale. Since TOPEX/Poseidon began collecting data in 1993, global sea level has risen 80 millimeters. That's 3 inches in just over two decades. Holy moly! Now you see why it's so important to have an uninterrupted stream of satellite data that extends far into the future.
Before TOPEX/Poseidon, there was Seasat, which was designed to find out if global satellite monitoring of Earth's ocean was even feasible. It launched in 1978 and operated for just over 100 days. And yupity do dah, now we know that satellite observations are feasible.
Just like its predecessors, Jason-3 is a radar altimeter, an instrument that measures sea surface height by precisely knowing the satellite's position in its orbit and by measuring the distance between itself and the top of the ocean. You see, the ocean surface is constantly changing, from waves, to tides, to El Niño, to sea level rise. As increased global warming causes more and more glacial ice and ice sheets to melt into Earth's ocean, and as this same warming heats the ocean surface, causing the warmer water to expand and sea levels to rise higher, it's absolutely crucial to have highly accurate, continuous global sea level measurements.
Furthermore, since the majority of Planet Earth is covered by ocean, and since water is exceptionally good at storing heat, the ocean will continue to play an enormous role in Earth's long-term climate.
Jason-3 will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in July or August. I'll be keeping you up-to-date on all of the goings on about the launch and its preparation. Meanwhile, you can find out more about Jason-3 and all of NASA's ocean surface topography missions here:
I look forward to your comments.
- Laura
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Jason-3 is an international partnership led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with participation from NASA, France's Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales (the French space agency) and EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. JPL built Jason-3's radiometer, GPS and laser reflector; is procuring the launch; and will help oversee the science team, which is responsible for ensuring the quality of the data.
Dawn Journal | May 28, 2015
Mysteries Unravel as Dawn Circles Closer to Ceres
Dear Emboldawned Readers,
A bold adventurer from Earth is gracefully soaring over an exotic world of rock and ice far, far away. Having already obtained a treasure trove from its first mapping orbit, Dawn is now seeking even greater riches at dwarf planet Ceres as it maneuvers to its second orbit.
The first intensive mapping campaign was extremely productive. As the spacecraft circled 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers) above the alien terrain, one orbit around Ceres took 15 days. During its single revolution, the probe observed its new home on five occasions from April 24 to May 8. When Dawn was flying over the night side (still high enough that it was in sunlight even when the ground below was in darkness), it looked first at the illuminated crescent of the southern hemisphere and later at the northern hemisphere.
When Dawn traveled over the sunlit side, it watched the northern hemisphere, then the equatorial regions, and finally the southern hemisphere as Ceres rotated beneath it each time. One Cerean day, the time it takes the globe to turn once on its axis, is about nine hours, much shorter than the time needed for the spacecraft to loop around its orbit. So it was almost as if Dawn hovered in place, moving only slightly as it peered down, and its instruments could record all of the sights as they paraded by.
We described the plans in much more detail in March, and they executed beautifully, yielding a rich collection of photos in visible and near infrared wavelengths, spectra in visible and infrared, and measurements of the strength of Ceres' gravitational attraction and hence its mass.
To gain the same view Dawn had, simply build your own ion-propelled spaceship, voyage deep into the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, take up residence at the giant orb and look out the window. Or go to the image gallery here.
Either way, the sights are spectacular. And they have already gotten even better. As Dawn has been descending to its second mapping orbit, it paused ion-thrusting on May 16 and May 22 to take more pictures, helping navigators get a tight fix on its orbital location. We explained this technique of optical navigation earlier, but now it is slightly different. Dawn is so close to Ceres that the behemoth fills the camera's field of view. No longer charting Ceres' location relative to background stars, navigators now use distinctive features on Ceres itself. It was an indistinct, fuzzy little blob just a few months ago, but now the maps are becoming detailed and accurate. Mathematical analyses of the locations of specific landmarks in each picture allow navigators to determine where Dawn was when the picture was taken.
Let's see how this works. Suppose I gave you a picture I had taken in your house. (The last time I was there, I opted for the cover of darkness rather than a more visible demonstration of optical navigation, but we can still imagine.) Because you know the positions of the doors, windows, furniture, impact craters, paintings, etc., you could establish where I had been when I took the photo. Now that they have charted the positions of the features at Dawn's new home, navigators can do virtually the same thing.
In addition to aiding in celestial navigation, the photos provided still better views of the world Dawn traveled so long and so far to explore. Greater and greater detail is visible as Dawn orbits closer, and a tremendous variety of intriguing sights are coming into view. It may well be that the most interesting discoveries have not even been made yet, but for now, what captivates most people (and other readers as well) are the bright spots.
We have discussed them here and there in recent months, and their luminous power continues to dazzle us. What appeared initially as one fuzzy spot proved to be two smaller spots and now many even smaller regions as the focus has become sharper. Why the ground there reflects so much sunlight remains elusive. Dawn's finer examinations with its suite of sophisticated instruments in the second, third and then final mapping orbits will provide scientists with data they need to unravel this marvelous mystery. For now, the enigmatic lights present an irresistible cosmic invitation to go closer and to scrutinize this strange and wonderful world, and we are eager to accept. After all, we explore to learn, to know the unknown, and the uniquely powerful scientific method will reveal the nature of the bright areas and what they can tell us about the composition and geology of this complex dwarf planet.
› Full image and caption
After having been viewed as little more than a smudge in telescopes for more than two centuries since its discovery, Ceres now is seen as a detailed, three-dimensional world. As promised, measurements from Dawn have revised the size to be about 599 miles (963 kilometers) across at the equator. Like Earth and other planets, Ceres is oblate, or slightly wider at the equator than from pole to pole. The polar diameter is 554 miles (891 kilometers). These dimensions are impressively close to what astronomers had determined from telescopic observations and confirm Ceres to be the colossus we have described.
Before Dawn, scientists had estimated Ceres' mass to be 1.04 billion billion tons (947 billion billion kilograms). Now it is measured to be 1.03 billion billion tons (939 billion billion kilograms), well within the previous margin of error. It is an impressive demonstration of the success of science that astronomers had been able to determine the heft of that point of light so accurately. Nevertheless, even this small change of less than one percent is important for planning the rest of Dawn's mission as it orbits closer and closer, feeling the gravitational tug ever more strongly.
Let's put this change in context. Dawn has now refined the mass, making a proportionally small adjustment of about 0.01 billion billion tons (eight billion billion kilograms). Although no more than a tweak on the overall value, it is still significantly greater than the combined mass of all asteroids visited by all other spacecraft. Ceres is so immense, so massive that even if all those asteroids were added to it, the difference would hardly even have been noticeable. This serves as another reminder that the dwarf planet really is quite unlike the millions of small asteroids that constitute the main asteroid belt. This behemoth contains about 30 percent of all the mass in that entire vast region of space. Vesta, the protoplanet Dawn orbited and studied in 2011-2012, is the second most massive resident there, holding about 8 percent of the asteroid belt's mass. Dawn by itself is exploring around 40 percent of the asteroid belt's mass!
Upon concluding its first mapping orbit, Dawn powered on its remarkable ion propulsion system on May 9 to fly down to a lower altitude where it will gain a better view. We examined the nature of the spiral paths between mapping orbits last year (and at Vesta in 2011-2012).
› Larger image
In its first mapping orbit, Dawn was 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers) high, revolving once in 15.2 days at a speed of 150 mph (240 kilometers per hour). By the time it completes this descent, the probe will be at an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers), orbiting Ceres every 3.1 days at 254 mph (408 kilometers per hour). (All of the mapping orbits were summarized in this table.) We have discussed that lower orbits require greater velocity to counterbalance the stronger gravitational hold.
Dawn's uniquely capable ion propulsion system, with its extraordinary combination of efficiency and gentleness, propels the ship to its new orbital destination in just under four weeks. The descent requires five revolutions, each one faster than the one before. The flight profile is complicated, and sometimes Dawn even dips below the final, planned altitude and then rises to greater heights as it flies on a path that is temporarily elliptical. The overall trend, of course, is downward. As Dawn heads for its targeted circular orbit, its maneuvering is also generally reducing the orbit period, the time required to make one complete revolution around Ceres. Indeed, if Dawn stopped thrusting now, its orbit period would be about 83 hours, or 3.5 days.
Dawn will complete ion-thrusting on June 3, but it will not be ready to begin its next science observations then. Rather, as in the other new mapping orbits, the first order of business will be for navigators to measure the new orbital parameters accurately. The flight team then will install in Dawn's main computer the details of the orbit it achieved so it will always know its location.
In addition, the intensive campaign of observations is planned to begin when the robotic explorer travels from the night side to the day side over the north pole. With the three-day orbit period, that will next occur on June 5. Controllers will take advantage of the intervening time to conduct other activities, including routine maintenance of the two reaction wheels that remain operable, although they are powered off most of the time. (Two of the four failed years ago. Dawn no longer relies on these devices to control its orientation, and it is remarkable that the mission can accomplish all of its original objectives without them. But if two do function in the final mapping orbit later this year, they will help extend the spacecraft's lifetime for bonus studies.)
We have already presented the ambitious plans for this second mapping orbit, sometimes known as "the second mapping orbit" and sometimes more succinctly and confusingly as "survey orbit." As with all four of Dawn's mapping orbits, it is designed to take the spacecraft over the poles, ensuring the best possible coverage. The ship will fly from the north pole to the south over the side of Ceres facing the sun, and then loop back to the north over the side hidden in the deep dark of night. On the day side, Dawn will aim its camera and spectrometers at the lit ground, filling its memory to capacity with the readings. On the night side, it will point its main antenna to distant Earth in order to radio its findings home. At Dawn's altitude, Ceres will appear twice as wide as the camera's view. (As illustrated in this table, it will look about the size of a soccer ball seen from a yard, or a meter, away.) But as the dwarf planet rotates on its axis and Dawn sails around in its more leisurely orbit, eventually all of the landscape will come within sight of the instruments.
Only one noteworthy change has been made in the intricate plans for survey orbit since May 2014's shocking exposé. With the observations starting on June 5, the subsequent complex orbital flight to the third mapping orbit (also known as HAMO) would have begun on June 27. As we have seen, the rapidly changing orbit in the spiral descents requires a great deal of effort by the small operations team on a rigid schedule. The capable men and women flying Dawn accomplished the maneuvers flawlessly at Vesta and are well prepared for the challenges at Ceres. The work is very demanding, however, and so, just as at Vesta, the team has built into the strategy the capability to make adjustments to align most of the tasks with a conventional work schedule. The technical plans (even including the exquisitely careful husbanding of hydrazine following the loss of the two reaction wheels) fully account for such human factors. It turns out that leaving survey orbit three days later shifts a significant amount of the following work off weekends, making it more comfortable for the team members. Three days is one complete revolution, and always extracting as much from the mission as possible, they have devised another full set of observations for an eighth orbit. As a result, survey orbit may be even more extensive and productive than originally anticipated.
What awaits Dawn in the next mapping phase? The views will be three times as sharp as in the previous orbit, and exciting new discoveries are sure to come. What answers will be revealed? And what new questions (besides this one) will arise? We will know soon, as we all share in the thrill of this grand adventure. To help you keep track of Dawn's progress as it powers its way down and then conducts further observations, your correspondent writes brief (hard to believe, isn't it?) mission status updates. And although in space no one can hear you tweet, terrestrial followers can get even more frequent updates with information he provides for Twitter @NASA_Dawn.
Dawn is 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) from Ceres. It is also 2.30 AU (214 million miles, or 345 million kilometers) from Earth, or 855 times as far as the moon and 2.27 times as far as the sun today. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take 38 minutes to make the round trip.
Dr. Marc D. Rayman
12:00 p.m. PDT May 28, 2015
Earth Right Now | May 12, 2015
The Sun is Always Shining on Joan Feynman
"I knew the names of the planets in order before I went to kindergarten," Joan Feynman, the younger sister of the famous physicist, told me. "My father was delighted by science. My brother, of course, was Richard Feynman—gifted as hell. When I was about three or four, he taught me to add numbers. I'd add them and if I got them right, he'd give me a reward. The reward was allowing me to pull his hair. As soon as I pulled his hair he'd make a terrible face."
Joan and I were supposed to be discussing her work on sunspots, aurora, geomagnetism and solar winds but we kept veering off on tangents, and I'm certain it was all my fault. I was charmed by her Long Island accent and wacky sense of humor, and the fact that at 88, she holds a research position at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
But Joan is much more than a little sister and a funny storyteller: She's a legit solar physicist who spent a long career analyzing the patterns of sunspot frequencies and their relationship to aurora. You see, people who live meaningful lives look deeply at the world around them—deeply enough to be moved, and sometimes deeply enough to move others. So in one afternoon, she managed to transfer a bit of her passion to me. I became mesmerized, mind-blown and in awe of solar physics.
"People have been observing aurora and drawing pictures of them for thousands of years," she explained. "We have records of them from the year 450 C.E. to 1450 C.E. The Swedes and Norwegians had made lists of what days there were aurora and the Chinese made lists. So they knew that when there was a big aurora in China, there was a big aurora in Sweden."
Obviously I know that counting sunspot and aurora frequencies sounds completely dorky. But trust me, it feels like diving into a whole other reality when you spend time talking with Joan.
She went on to describe how "aurora, the geomagnetic currents and solar flares are part of the same process. Solar flares put out huge disturbances in the magnetic field of the solar wind and in the kind of particles that come out, and they cause the aurora." Solar geomagnetic activity varies over 11-year and 88-year cycles. The 88-year Gleissberg cycle, a variation in amplitude of the 11-year solar cycle, is what's captivated Joan throughout her career. "The whole point of science is to understand the mysteries you see around you," she said. And solar activity has been part of that mystery for Joan her entire life.
Check out this story about the first time she saw an aurora as a very young child:
"I was fascinated by that aurora," she continued. "They're gigantic, they're impressive; everybody runs out to see them. They were mysteries. The sky is lit up red and gold and yellow and shooting."
When I told her that I didn't even know they had aurora in Long Island, she said, "Auroras come down to lower latitudes when they're very big."
Are you starting to see how I got all jacked up just listening to her? I've never even seen a real live aurora. It was like sitting next to a kid with a better toy. She was taunting me, describing colors, movement and wild sky. I was hooked and jealous.
I want to see one now!
Although today we understand that aurora are caused by the interaction between the Earth's magnetosphere and the magnetic particles in the solar wind, there are still plenty of solar mysteries to keep Joan occupied. "How does the sun do that?" She wants to know. "How does the sun manage to get a cycle of 88 years?"
For me, the question is clear: "If there were lots of them in the 1930s, and there's an 88-year cycle, does that mean I'm going to get to see them soon?"
She answered: "It's time for me to write the next paper on this: Are they back?"
I look forward to your comments.
- Laura
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Earth Right Now | May 4, 2015
Rainbow of Hope
When you read my blog, you're either going to say "no way" or "finally." And honestly, I'm kind of saying both, but definitely leaning more toward the latter.
See, normally I'm weighed down by the epic crisis known as global climate change (ugh). But this morning, I'm thinking: "finally." At last, Earth's climate is going to get the attention it deserves. Finally, enough people are showing they care and it's going to make a difference. Finally.
True, it's hard to believe—even for me. But deep in my bones, I feel the tide starting to turn. (And by using that expression, I do not mean higher tides are flooding low-lying regions. That's been going on for a while.)
What I mean is that everywhere I turn I see people paying attention to Earth's climate. Not enough attention yet, mind you, but at least people are talking about it. And for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful.
Maybe this optimism has something to do with the rainbow I saw while walking out in the rain over the weekend. Maybe it's because NASA's Global Climate Change website won both the People's Voice and the juried Webby Awards for Best Green Site, and our Earth Now mobile app won in the Education and Reference category.
Whatever it is, I hope you'll join me in my moment of optimism, because together—you and me—we are responsible for making this planet the kind of world we want to live in.
Bring it.
- Laura
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Slice of History | May 4, 2015
Goldstone Antenna Construction Model - 1963
In October 1963, the Advanced Antenna System, also known as the 210-foot (64-meter) Mars antenna, was under construction at the Goldstone Deep Space Instrumentation Facility. The site was being cleared and a foundation dug, an access road was nearing completion, and a reservoir was built to provide water during construction. Assembly of the antenna required a 200-ton guy derrick, used to lift large pieces into place. In preparation for this stage of construction, scale models of the antenna and the guy derrick were built, showing how the derrick would be anchored to the desert floor by long cables.
This post was written for "Historical Photo of the Month," a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
Dawn Journal | April 29, 2015
Getting Down to Science at Ceres
Let's get Dawn to business, Dear Readers,
Dawn's assignment when it embarked on its extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition in 2007 can be described quite simply: explore the two most massive uncharted worlds in the inner solar system. It conducted a spectacular mission at Vesta, orbiting the giant protoplanet for 14 months in 2011-2012, providing a wonderfully rich and detailed view. Now the sophisticated probe is performing its first intensive investigation of dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn is slowly circling the alien world of rock and ice, far from Earth and far from the sun, executing its complex operations with the prowess it has demonstrated throughout its ambitious journey.
Following an interplanetary trek of 7.5 years and 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers), Earth's ambassador arrived in orbit on March 6, answering Ceres' two-century-old celestial invitation. With its advanced ion propulsion system and ace piloting skills, it has maneuvered extensively in orbit. Traveling mostly high over the night side of Ceres, arcing and banking, thrusting and coasting, accelerating and decelerating, climbing and diving, the spaceship flew to its first targeted orbital altitude, which it reached on April 23.
Dawn is at an altitude of about 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers) above the mysterious terrain. This first mapping orbit is designated RC3 by the Dawn team and is a finalist in the stiff competition for the coveted title of Most Confusing Name for a Ceres Mapping Orbit. (See this table for the other contestants.) Last month we described some of the many observations Dawn will perform here, including comprehensive photography of the alien landscapes, spectra in infrared and visible wavelengths, a search for an extremely tenuous veil of water vapor and precise tracking of the orbit to measure Ceres' mass.
On the way down to this orbit, the spacecraft paused ion thrusting twice earlier this month to take pictures of Ceres, as it had seven times before in the preceding three months. (We presented and explained the schedule for photography during the three months leading up to RC3 here.) Navigators used the pictures to measure the position of Ceres against the background of stars, providing crucial data to guide the ship to its intended orbit. The Dawn team also used the pictures to learn about Ceres to aid in preparing for the more detailed observations.
We described last month, for example, adjusting the camera settings for upcoming pictures to ensure good exposures for the captivating bright spots, places that reflect significantly more sunlight than most of the dark ground. Scientists have also examined all the pictures for moons of Ceres (and many extra pictures were taken specifically for that purpose). And thanks to Dawn's pictures, everyone who longs for a perspective on the universe unavailable from our terrestrial home has been transported to a world one million times farther away than the International Space Station.
The final pictures before reaching RC3 certainly provide a unique perspective. (You can see Dawn's pictures of Ceres here.) On April 10 and April 14-15, Dawn peered down over the northern hemisphere and watched for two hours each time as Ceres turned on its axis, part of the unfamiliar cratered terrain bathed in sunlight, part in the deep dark of night. This afforded a very different view from what we are accustomed to in looking at other planets, as most depictions of planetary rotations are from nearer the equator to show more of the surface. (Indeed, Dawn acquired views like that in its February "rotation characterizations.") The latest animations of Ceres rotating beneath Dawn are powerful visual reminders that this capable interplanetary explorer really is soaring around in orbit about a distant, alien world. Following the complex flight high above the dark hemisphere, where there was nothing to see, the pictures also show us that the long night's journey into day has ended.
Gradually descending atop its blue-green beam of high velocity xenon ions, Dawn crossed over the terminator -- the boundary between the dark side and the lit side -- on April 15 almost directly over the north pole. On April 20, on final approach to RC3, it flew over the equator at an altitude of about 8,800 miles (14,000 kilometers).
The spacecraft completed its ion thrusting shortly after 1:00 a.m. PDT on April 23. What an accomplishment this was! From the time Dawn left its final mapping orbit at Vesta in July 2012, this is where it has been headed. The escape from Vesta's gravitational clutches in September 2012, the subsequent two and a half years of interplanetary travel and entering into orbit around Ceres on March 6, as genuinely exciting and important as it was, all really occurred as consequences of targeting this particular orbit.
In September 2014, the aftereffects of being struck by cosmic radiation compelled the operations team to rapidly develop a complex new approach trajectory because they still wanted to achieve this very orbit, where Dawn is now. And the eidetic reader will note that even when the innovative flight profile was presented five months ago (with many further details in subsequent months), we explained that it would conclude on April 23. And it did! Here we are! All the descriptions and figures plus a cool video elucidated a pretty neat idea, but it's also much more than an idea: it's real!! A probe from Earth is in a mapping orbit around a faraway dwarf planet.
When it had accomplished the needed ion thrusting, the veteran space traveler turned to point its main antenna to Earth so mission controllers could prepare it for the intensive mapping observations. The first task was to measure the orbital parameters so they could be transmitted to the spacecraft.
A few readers (you and I both know who you are) may have noted that in Dawn Journals during the last year, we have described the altitude of RC3 as 8,400 miles and 13,500 kilometers. Above, however, it is 13,600 kilometers. This is not a mistake. (It would be a mistake if the previous sentence were written, "Above, howevr, it is 13,600 kilometers.") This subtle difference belies several important issues about the orbits at Ceres. Let's take a further look.
As we explained when Dawn resided at Vesta, the orbital altitude we present is always an average (and rounded off, to avoid burdening readers with too many unhelpful digits). Vesta, Ceres, Earth and other planetary bodies are not perfect spheres, so even if the spacecraft traveled in a perfect circle, its altitude would change. They all are somewhat oblate, being wider across the equator than from pole to pole. In addition, they have more localized topography. Think of flying in a plane over your planet. If the pilot maintains a constant altitude above sea level, the distance above the ground changes because the elevation of the ground itself varies, coming closer to the aircraft on mountains and farther in valleys. In addition, as it turns out, orbits are not perfect circles but tend to be slightly elliptical, as if the plane flies slightly up and down occasionally, so the altitude changes even more.
In their exquisitely detailed planning, the Dawn team has had to account for the unknown nature of Ceres itself, including its mass and hence the strength of its gravitational pull. Dawn is the only spacecraft to orbit large, massive planetary bodies that were not previously visited by flyby spacecraft. Mercury, Venus, the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all were studied by spacecraft that flew past them before subsequent missions were sent to orbit them. The first probes to each provided an initial measurement of the mass and other properties that were helpful for the arrival of the first orbiters. At Vesta and Ceres, Dawn has had to discover the essential characteristics as it spirals in closer and closer. For each phase, engineers make the best measurements they can and then use them to update the plans for the subsequent phases. As a result, however, plans are based on impressive but nevertheless imperfect knowledge of what will be encountered at lower altitudes. So even if the spacecraft executes an ion thrust flight profile perfectly, it might not wind up exactly where the plan had specified.
There are other reasons as well for small differences between the predicted and the actual orbit. One is minor variations in the thrust of the ion propulsion system, as we discussed here. Another is that every time the spacecraft fires one of its small rocket thrusters to rotate or to stabilize its orientation in the zero-gravity conditions of spaceflight, that also nudges the spacecraft, changing its orbit a little. (See here for a related example of the effect of the thrusters on the trajectory.)
The Dawn flight team has a deep understanding of all the sources of orbit discrepancies, and they always ensure that their intricate plans account for them. Even if the RC3 altitude ended up more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) higher or lower than the specified value, everything would still work just fine to yield the desired pictures and other data. In fact, the actual RC3 orbit is within 25 miles (40 kilometers), or less than one tenth what the plan was designed to accommodate, so the spacecraft achieved a virtual cosmic bullseye!
In the complex preparations on April 23, one file was not radioed to Dawn on time, so late that afternoon when the robot tried to use this file, it could not find it. It responded appropriately by running protective software, stopping its activities, entering "safe mode" and beaming a signal back to distant Earth to indicate it needed further instructions. After the request arrived in mission control at JPL, engineers quickly recognized what had occurred. That night they reconfigured the spacecraft out of safe mode and back to its normal operational configuration, and they finished off the supply of ice cream in the freezer just outside the mission control room. Although Dawn was not ready to begin its intensive observation campaign in the morning of April 24, it started later that same day and has continued to be very productive.
Dawn is a mission of exploration. And rather than be constrained by a fast flight by a target for a brief glimpse, Dawn has the capability to linger in orbit for a very long time at close range. The probe will spend more than a year conducting detailed investigations to reveal as much as possible about the nature of the first dwarf planet discovered, which we had seen only with telescopes since it was first glimpsed in 1801. The pictures Dawn has sent us so far are intriguing and entrancing, but they are only the introduction to this exotic world. They started transforming it from a smudge of light into a real, physical place and one that a sophisticated, intrepid spacecraft can even reach. Being in the first mapping orbit represents the opportunity now to begin developing a richly detailed, intimate portrait of a world most people never even knew existed. Now, finally, we are ready to start uncovering the secrets Ceres has held since the dawn of the solar system.
Dawn is 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers) from Ceres. It is also 2.66 AU (247 million miles, or 398 million kilometers) from Earth, or 985 times as far as the moon and 2.64 times as far as the sun today. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take 44 minutes to make the round trip.
Dr. Marc D. Rayman
10:30 p.m. PDT April 29, 2015
P.S. Our expert outreach team has done a beautiful job modernizing the website, and blog comments are no longer included. I appreciate all the very kind feedback, expressions of enthusiasm, interesting questions and engaging discussions that the community of Dawnophiles has posted over the last year or so. Now I will devote the time I had been spending responding to comments to providing more frequent mission status updates as well as fun and interesting tidbits you can follow on Twitter @NASA_Dawn.
Earth Right Now | April 21, 2015
Give Peas a Chance
"Excuse me. What kind of plants are those?"
I was squatting down in my front yard as I do every morning, picking veggies for breakfast, when I heard a voice behind me. I stood up and turned around. It was a neighbor from across the street and three houses down. "They're peas," I told him.
A few years back, we were among the first in our neighborhood to rip out the grass in our parkway so we could plant drought-tolerant succulents and other cool-looking plants instead of boring, old, water-sucking grass. Little did I know that, along with saving money and water, the process also attracted the curiosity of lots of people on our street. We were bucking the trend, breaking the norm, doing something different. And people wanted to hear all about our new way-cooler-looking-than-grass plants.
Then we created a vegetable garden in the front yard. The goal was to have a cool modern-looking yard and have some fun growing and eating good food. We succeeded in harvesting enough kale, tomatoes, artichokes, chard and peas to feast on for many weeks (and I was able to include my own home-grown items in the yummy edible NASA satellite models I made).
But our gardening exploits brought us another unexpected advantage. We were already growing food in our backyard and side yard, but we learned that when you plant cool stuff in the front yard, lots of passersby stop to check it out. It's usually the artichokes that evoke the most frequent comments and questions. I mean, artichokes are weird-looking. (Shhh, don't you dare tell them I said that!) But over the years our vegetable garden has become a magnet that's attracted friendship and community in our neighborhood. And we've seen many other lawns turn into gardens, too.
There's no way to tell what will unfold when you start to do something, even the smallest thing. Actions grow and expand, sort of like the way our peas started out small, crawled past their trellises and are now getting tangled up into each other. What you create in the world can take on a life of its own, beyond what you might ever imagine.
Every Earth Day I write about taking an individual action, and every time I write this I get all kinds of criticism about how doing one small thing isn't enough.
But next time you start to think that your actions are too small to make a difference, think about me and my silly old peas. Remember that I reached down, picked a fresh pea and handed it across the stucco wall to the guy who lives down the street-the guy whom I hadn't yet connected with in all these years; one of the last of my neighbors to reach out. He told me that he and his wife saw our yard and decided to plant a garden as well.
And while you're at it, remember to celebrate Earth Day this year by joining NASA as we all share views of our favorite place on Earth on social media. We hope that if all of us take a moment to acknowledge and remember our planet, we'll feel more connected to it.
You can post photos, Vines and/or Instagram videos. Just be sure to include the hashtag #NoPlaceLikeHome - no matter what social media platform you're using.
You can also get on board now by using our #NoPlaceLikeHome emoji as your profile pic. Join the Facebook or Google+ events and invite your friends to participate. Pledge to spend one day celebrating the planet that over 7 billion people call home.
Find out more at http://www.nasa.gov/likehome/.
Thanks for everything you do to care for our planet.
I look forward to your comments.
- Laura
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Earth Right Now | April 9, 2015
Earth Day: All the Drops Add Up
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a high school student in Michigan. She was working on a climate change research project and wanted to ask me a few questions, so of course I said yes. She asked me about my job at NASA, what I thought were the most pressing aspects of Earth's changing climate, and the ocean's role in long-term climate trends.
But then there was this question: "I like to do everything I can each day to reduce my own contribution to climate change … I want to encourage my peers to take small actions each day to help our climate, but will it really matter beyond making people feel good about themselves? ... It seems like there is nothing individuals can do."
Now I'm a pretty direct person, but I'm also fairly kind to high school students, especially those I've never even met. Yet this time, I let her have it:
"You are wrong," I stated bluntly, wishing an error buzzer noise could accompany my outgoing email message. "You are wrong about your own contribution being insignificant. One person's efforts are hugely important and don't you ever forget it."
Sure, I understand it's easy to feel completely overwhelmed and powerless in the face of a tremendous problem such as climate change. I work on a climate change website every day—I get it. Just thinking about climate change and other environmental issues gets depressing. These problems are too big; they feel insurmountable. And then when you want to do something, it seems like whatever you do is too small, like a tiny drop in a gigantic pit.
But each and every single individual action, no matter how small it may seem, adds to what ultimately makes a difference. You may think, "One person isn't going to make a big difference; it's not going to be a big deal." But taking responsibility for how your life affects the environment is a huge deal.
The Earth is amazing. And when you look at the view from space you see that the whole Earth is your home, our home. You see that what happens on the other side of the planet matters.
So go ahead: Take the journey from "there's not much I can do" to "there are many things I will commit to doing." Because together, our individual actions can make a bigger impact than you might ever imagine. And since Earth Day is coming up on April 22, now is the perfect time to begin that journey.
One of the things we're doing to celebrate Earth Day this year is asking people around the world to share on social media views of their favorite place on Earth. As we rush through our busy lives, sometimes we forget to appreciate how much we care about this place we call home. We hope that if all of us take a moment to acknowledge and remember our planet, we'll feel more connected with it. And that's one small step toward making it a better place.
You can post photos, Vines and/or Instagram videos. Just be sure to include the hashtag #NoPlaceLikeHome – no matter what social media platform you're using.
You can also get on board now by using our #NoPlaceLikeHome emoji as your profile pic. Join the Facebook or Google+ events and invite your friends to participate. Pledge to spend one day celebrating the planet that over 7 billion people call home.
Find out more at http://www.nasa.gov/likehome/.
Thanks for everything you do to care for our planet.
- Laura
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Find hotels in Westwood using the list and search tools below. Search for cheap and discounted hotel and motel rates in or close to Westwood, MA for your business or personal leisure travel. We show the best Westwood Massachusetts hotel/motel rooms. Review the Westwood hotel list below to find the perfect lodging. We also have a map of the Westwood hotels.The Westwood center is approximately 2 miles from Westwood Amtrak Station and 3 miles from Norwood Memorial Airport.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Belt clip or belt loop.. Seems like a good concealment idea..
Belt clip or belt loop.. Seems like a good concealment idea..
"Man needs but two things to survive alone in the woods. A blow up female doll and his trusty old AK-47" - Thomas Jefferson 1781
There not all that quick to deploy from I'd imagine, but much more discrete, sense every one has some type of pad or whatever do-dad hanging off there belt nowadays.
I don't even worry about "printing' to much anymore sense everyone walks around with some type of Star Trek communicator or other And they all show a "print" too.
That's why I chose holsters that pretty much cover the whole gun, indistinguishable printing that way.
I'm thinking most kops would want to see your CCW if you used it.
SOON-We already lost the war. You are the resistance.
I been thinking of sewing up one from leather to see how it does. May be a little bulky w/ a full size 1911 or glock 20! Maybe my bulgy Makarov.
Clan MacPherson
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
Some of us,,(lucky folks),,, live in "free states " where we don't have to worry about getting asked for a CCW.
We've got the lowest crime rate too,,,what do you suppose causes that???? Couldn't have anything to do with lots of people carrying would it and no CCW being required ???? Just might be a good statistic for others to quote in arguments about gun control.
I wonder if at some point that big thing just screams "i have a gun".
Not slagging it, but trying to understand it--i think of concealment as less obvious and as un-noticeable as possible.
Interesting idea, but it hasnt grown on me yet.


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Create highly realistic 3D architectural drawings (including interior/exterior elements) with the lights, materials, camera, and render options in Twilight.
Create highly realistic 3D architectural drawings with V-Ray, a popular third-party renderer for SketchUp.
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Will Obama's Immigration Policy Affect Alabama's Law?
By Tanya Ott
Originally published on Mon June 18, 2012 8:24 am
Friday's announcement by the Obama administration that the U.S. plans to stop deporting some illegal immigrants received mixed reviews in Alabama. That state has one of the most aggressive anti-immigration laws in the country.


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Health & Counselling Services
Services We Provide
Counselling Services offers confidential individual, marriage, and family counselling to students, associates, and their respective families across our three schools on a fee for service basis.
Counselling Services serves as a training context for graduate students in the Marriage and Family Therapy program offered through the seminary. Trained graduate students (known as supervised counsellors) are involved in the provision of counselling and are supervised by one of our professional staff members.
Information on a variety of life issues is available through Counselling Services. We also serve as a resource to faculty and student development personnel in their ongoing work and contact with students. The faculty referral guide is available here.
Counselling Services has a strong network of relationships within the Moose Jaw mental health community. We coordinate referral and consultation with outside agencies as necessary.
As a full-time student at Briercrest who does not have access to third-party assistance, your subsidized fee will be $30 per hour. As an associate of Briercrest College and Seminary or Caronport High School, your Employee Assistance Plan fee is $40 per hour.
The non-subsidized fee is $80 per hour.
In most cases, fees can be billed to a student or associate account. There is also some provision for further fee subsidy. Please discuss this with your counsellor if you are unable to pay the full fee.
Down the seminary hallway from the Crossroads Café, Room S107.
Hours of operation
Counselling Services is open Monday to Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m and Friday 8:00 a.m. to noon.
Setting up appointments
Appointments can be arranged in a number of ways:
- dropping by and talking with one of our counsellors
- calling our office (306-756-3313) and either talking with one of the counsellors or leaving a brief message
- contacting us via email at email@example.com
- referral through Health Services or a physician
- having an associate or faculty member set up an appointment on your behalf
- having an associate or faculty member come by and introduce you to one of our counsellors
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Tuesday, June 3, 2014
When Ashlee Rollisons friends come across a bug or spider in their rooms she knows their initial instinct is to kill it.
Rollison, however, takes a different approach she prefers to capture the little critter and release it back into its habitat, something that reflects her love for all living things.
Rollison, 34, is the STEAM instructor at Joseph R. Pye Elementary, and this is the first year the school has had a STEAM initiative.
The acronym stands for Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics.
For the first three quarters of the school year Rollison taught STEAM to second through fifth graders, and then kindergarten through second graders in the last quarter and she has greatly enjoyed teaching the course.
Rollison has been teaching a total of 11 years, and this is her eighth year in the district. At Pye Elementary she formerly taught third grade math, science and social studies. She previously worked at Spann Elementary before she followed Spanns former principal Wanda Williams to Pye Elementary.
As a college student Rollison initially went into Radford University in Virginia thinking she was going to major in communications. After her freshman year of college she took a job as a swimming instructor at a 4H camp and fell in love with teaching kids.
As soon as I worked with the kids I knew thats what I wanted to do, she said. I liked that aha moment and I wanted to get that every day.
Rollison went on to study elementary education with a concentration in English and special education. However, she has always loved math and science which is why she likes being the STEAM instructor.
I love this position because thats what I get to do all day, she said.
Rollison also has her masters in education through Southern Wesleyan University. After finishing school she moved from Richmond, Va. to South Carolina wanting to be near the beach and away from snow.
Since becoming a teacher Rollison said she has never had any particular bad experiences but her favorite experience has been becoming the STEAM instructor.
Ive loved teaching this year, she said. I was able to still teach children but still work with the teachers. Its been a real enriching experience.
In STEAM Rollison tries to empower her students to be creative and critical thinkers skills they will use for the rest of their lives.
Were making a big impact on all my students, she said.
Outside the classroom Rollison has stayed active being a part of the Administrators Instructional Leadership Team and the Sunshine Committee. On the STEAM committee she has planned events for her students such as getting business leaders to come and talk to students. She has also served as a Robotics coach, along with kindergarten teacher Starlynn Atkins.
Rollisons professional goal is to continue learning so she can give her students the skills they need to be successful.
I want to know what my students need to be productive citizens when they grow up, she said.
Outside of school Rollison is an active married mother of two. She has been married to her husband Chris for nine years and together they have their daughter Addie, who is 6 and just finished kindergarten at Pye Elementary, and their 4-year-old son Ridge. The family also has an 11-year-old black lab named Cooper who is 100 pounds and thinks he is a lap dog, according to Rollison.
Rollison is an avid reader and does many things with her family. They love to go camping, hang out on their boat, hike and enjoy being outside. Rollison loves the beach and animals, and has done service projects with the school for the Summerville SPCA.
We participate in many things here but thats one that is near and dear to my heart, she said.
Rollisons life goal is to be the best person she can be, and be respectful of all living things and give back to the community.
I want to be a blessing to someone else which is one of the reasons why I became a teacher, she said.
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Approximately 2,500 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions employees who have been subject to reduced work hours since April will return to full-time status beginning Monday.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions President and CEO Dwayne Wilson announced to affected employees via email Thursday that the necessary funding for the contractor to continue its work for the remainder of FY 2013 will arrive at the Savannah River Site no later than next week.
"Thus, we will immediately begin the process to return employees to their normal work schedules," he wrote. "Employees should complete this week on their reduced work schedule and plan to return to full-time work status beginning the week of May 27. All employees will be reverted to the schedule they were working on March 31."
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is the managing contractor at the Savannah River Site.
The necessary federal funds requested by the Department of Energy for use at SRS were approved on May 15. The request for $79 million had been sitting with the Office of Management and Budget since March 18.
The funding request was geared toward softening the blow of sequestration, which resulted in budget shortfalls, a forced reduction in staff hours and narrowing of the Site's scope of work.
SRNS spokesperson Barbara Smoak said she and others are excited to have employees return to full-time status.
"We're ready to get them back to work," she added.
Notification announcements can be viewed at www.srs.gov by clicking on the "SRS Status and Emergency Information" button. The notification is also available by calling 803-725-SITE (803-725-7483).
• Haley Hughes is the news editor for the Aiken Standard. She joined the newspaper in 2007 and covered the Aiken County government until her promotion in 2013. Hughes, a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, hails from Knoxville, Tenn.
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this appears more like a misc die that he through in (ebay used crap)
I went out and cut some 30-06 brass to 1.850 expanded straight (as best I could with some misc die parts)1. sized it in my 444 marlin die with the original expander removed.
2. rexpanded the neck/bullet area with the 444 marlin dies. 3 seated the bullet with a 44 magnum die it didnot give much tension on the bullet so I 3. ran it through the 444 marlin seater and it seems to put a good squease on the bullet.
I ended up with 3 rounds that If I had primed and powderd would not be afraid to try to fire.
The only reason I needed the 44 mag die was that the 444 marlin seater/ the part that pushes the bullet down would not screw down far enough to fully seat the bullet. I really think this can all be done with a slightly modifed die set. Or perhaps a differant brand of 444 marlin dies that has a longer seating range. I can easly modify my seater to work and still be functional to do 444 marlin as well. A expander to straighten the brass out is a must if you want a nice taperd round. I think once I come up with chamber you could skip the expanding and just fire form the case buy shooting it.
I then went out and made one with primer and powder just to say I have the first functional 444??? biggun special or a 11x46 Gunco special or a 430x1.85" or the 444 rimless short mag or the 444 SURT well any way I got the round now I need the gun.


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Thursday, May 23, 2013
CoastRunner Band (pictured) will play Goose Creek's first Summer Concert Series show this Friday from 6 – 9 p.m. at Crowfield Golf Club, located at 300 Hamlet Circle in Goose Creek. This will be the first in a series of six weekly concerts. Admission is free. Guests are asked to leave their pets, coolers and alcohol at home.
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At UCF Founders Day, Wednesday, April 3, Andy Todd received the Excellence in Librarianship award for 2013.
Andy is a regional campus librarian, located at UCF Cocoa. He is known for writing and compiling Research Guides, such as Nursing Research , and for his work as an embedded librarian in scores of online classes. But he is also known for his dedication to helping students and faculty with library research. And Andy is known to all at the UCF Libraries as a wonderful colleague.
Andy Todd is pictured here at Founders Day with University of Central Florida President John C. Hitt.
Congratulations, Andy!
UCF/BCC is extremely lucky to have Mr. Todd. He always goes above and beyond to help all students including me! He has helped me with my research on numerous occasions. He cares so much about all the students and is always professional and helpful. CONGRATS MR. TODD!!! You are so deserving of this award!!! It is so nice to see someone so deserving being recognized for your dedication to your students and college!


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Rhode Island College is committed to providing accommodations for students with disabling conditions and supporting them in the academic environment. Support services are provided within a campus environment that is physically and socially accessible and that enables students to achieve their academic goals.
Rhode Island College students with disabilities who wish to request reasonable accommodations at the college MUST meet with a member of the Disabilities Services Office staff. To make an appointment, please call us at 401-456-2776 or TTY (via RI Relay) 711.
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Please Note: The policies and procedures described on this website are designed to provide information regarding accommodations for students with disabilities and are subject to change with or without notice.


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Chiropractic care can help fight obesity
(NewsUSA) - Are we overlooking potential help for those struggling with obesity?
With the epidemic now estimated to be costing the nation $147 billion annually, it's a question that's very much on the minds of health experts. And many, including lifestyle guru Shea Vaughn, are citing chiropractic care as a crucial part of overall wellness programs.
"Chiropractic care helps patients with many physical ailments. It also represents a proactive approach helping to prevent injury and relieve stress, while providing a positive influence on any individual's mind, body and heart," says the much-quoted author of "Breakthrough: The 5 Living Principles to Defeat Stress, Look Great & Find Total Well-Being."
What's more, doctors of chiropractic can also counsel patients on their diets -- what to emphasize (fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans) and what to reduce (processed foods, sugar, soda, fats). "The key is to make consistent, small positive changes," says the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress' Gerard W. Clum, D.C.
With 149.3 million Americans aged 20 and older considered overweight or obese, check out yes2chiropractic.org for more info.
Copyright 2015 by KSAT - All rights reserved.


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Average retail gasoline prices in Surry County have risen a whopping 20 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.69 per gallon yesterday, according to GasBuddy.
This compares with the national average that has increased 11.9 cents per gallon in the last week to $3.68 per gallon.
"I can't believe what's happening," said John Roberts of State Road.
"How are people getting away with this?" asked June Winters from Jonesville. "It sort of makes me wonder if I'm just too dependent on gas."
The national average has increased 42.2 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 16.7 cents per gallon higher than this day one year ago, per GasBuddy.
"The steady climb of retail gas prices is likely to continue following double-digit increases in wholesale prices with fuel production tightening in the majority of the country's refineries," said GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst Gregg Laskoski.
A AAA North Carolina spokesperson said gas has gone up overnight by 4 cents with the statewide average checking in at $3.72 per gallon.
"We see a combined impact," said AAA Public Relations Manager Angela Vogel Daley. "Refineries are transition from winter fuel to summer fuel blends, so the supply is restricted. Worse, crude oil prices are up due the improving economy and demand. The more the demand, the higher the prices."
Daley says people are less likely to take longer trips with prices escalating.
"The closer we get to $4 per gallon we believe people will restrict travel plans," she said.
Rising prices are not uncommon heading in the spring for North Carolina. Last year prices peaked on April 6 to $3.91.
"We are 7 cents over where we were on this date last year," she said "and we had other contributing factors such as foreign tension from the Middle East.


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The Resource Finder has powerful filtering features — check out the tutorial to learn more.
Science, Christianity, and Homeschooling
Resilient learners and a robust faith can handle challenges. But the faith of the students my professor described was different— strong, but brittle; it did not have the resilience that comes through testing.
Allaying Parental Fears About Evolution Education in Public Schools
If they left their children in the public classroom, should they as concerned parents, as committed Christians, as agents of truth and light in this dark world, remain quiet or should they speak out?
The Source of Human Value
In this video, physicist Ard Louis describes that our value and purpose do not come from whether or not we were created by an evolutionary mechanism. Evolution may tell us something about how we were created, but it is not the source of our worth.
The (Lack Of) Conflict Between Science and Religion in College Students
Media-hungry atheist, creationist and religious fundamentalist provocateurs have dominated the science and religion narrative for the past decade. A recently published large-scale survey of college students, however, finds that the call to arms has fallen on deaf ears.
Ask an Evolutionary Creationist: A Q&A with Dennis Venema
Even if Darwin had never lived and no one else had come up with the idea of common ancestry, modern genomics would have forced us to that conclusion even if there was no other evidence available.
Series: "The Language of God" Book Club (7 entries)
The BioLogos Book Club discussion of Francis Collins' The Language of God.
Evolution and Creationism in America's Biology Classrooms
High school biology courses have a strong and lingering impact on students' views of evolution and creationism.
Worshiping, Growing, and Learning
Yesterday, biology professors Randy Moore and Sehoya Cotner raised the concern that workshops focused on evolution-related training do not reach creationism-based biology teachers. Today, we'd like to focus on BioLogos' efforts to address that divide through our Biology by the Sea workshops.
What Americans Think and Feel about Evolution
The new Gallup survey shows in broad strokes the challenge we face. But more nuanced surveys find that only 8% of Americans are convinced creationists whose beliefs are dear to them, and only 4% are convinced atheistic evolutionists whose beliefs are dear to them. The vast majority of Americans are not sure of their position and are open to a conversation.
A Plea to My Shepherds
... I would exhort these, my fellow conservative evangelical shepherds and thinkers, to set aside all reticence and fear, emerge from anonymity, and storm the forum of discourse, engaging this most pressing matter with vigor, equanimity, and humility. In doing so, know upfront that there will be few handrails to guide; you will not be building upon an extensive precedence of published conservative thought.
Denis Alexander on Understanding Creation Theology
In this video Conversation, Denis Alexander asserts that contemporary Christians are not taking the early chapters of Genesis seriously enough.
Evolution and Christian Faith Grantees Announced
Congratulations to the 37 winners of the Evolution & Christian Faith (ECF) grants competition! ECF is a new BioLogos program designed to support projects and network-building among scholars, church leaders, and parachurch organizations.
Raising Children to Pursue Truth
In this video Conversation, Joel Hunter articulates the importance of raising a child that can garner knowledge from a variety of sources and to be able to study science with integrity—that is, to be able to pursue the truth to where it leads.
Does Evolution Compromise Human Morality?
Once we have a scientific hypothesis for how something exists, it is tempting to make the philosophical inference that this is also why it exists.
Series: Harmonizing Science, Ethics, and Praxis (4 entries)
In this three-part series, Cal DeWitt offers insights and examples of why science and ethics must work together to help us make informed, practical decisions within our society. DeWitt's science-ethics-praxis model provides a framework by which we can live more effectively as God's stewards.
Series: To Serve and Preserve—Genesis 2 and the Human Calling (4 entries)
In this series, David Buller pays careful attention to the original language and cultural context of Genesis 2, revealing that our responsibility to care for creation is a sacred task given to us by God, not merely a modern secular activity. By taking Scripture seriously, we learn that we have a God-given mandate to be diligent stewards of His creation.
Series: Confronting Our Fears (6 entries)
In this series, U.S. Navy Commander Mike Beidler shares his own personal journey from accepting young-earth creationism to embracing evolutionary creationism.
Series: "And God Saw That It Was Good": Death and Pain in the Created Order (6 entries)
The tension generated by our understanding of God's character, as revealed in the Bible, and by the reality of the natural world around us has been the focus of much debate within the Christian church since the first century. This series examines critically several of the proposed solutions to this problem, viewing them from the perspective of a geologist, paleontologist, and orthodox evangelical Christian.
Series: Biblical and Scientific Shortcomings of Flood Geology (6 entries)
Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth seek to remove the stumbling block of the Genesis flood in this four part series. Though many believe in an ancient world-wide flood, the evidence given does not hold up to geological scrutiny, but points rather to something regional instead. It is their hope that Christians will not walk away from faith in Christ simply because a global flood is not supported by science. Looking at natural phenomena like the Grand Canyon, salt beds, and fossil deposits, they reveal reasons for these deposits and structures while showing that their origin did not stem from a violent flood that covered the planet.


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Monday, January 9, 2012
anonymous commenting
So here's my compromise: anonymous comments won't be blocked or deleted, and other readers or commenters are free to read them and engage or whatever. For myself, this will be my personal policy towards them, as well as the perfect visualization of my attitude towards those who get on me for not being well-behaved, deferential towards power and influence, or apologetic:
Update: Psuedonyms are fine, but please pick one and stick to it. Even if you're just telling me how much of an asshole I am each time you post.
15 comments:
How do you know I'm not Shakespeare?!
- January 9, 2012 at 11:15 AM
- Freddie said...
Damn, I read that without intending to. This is going to be harder than I thought.
- January 9, 2012 at 11:31 AM
- J. Otto Pohl said...
Well I always use my real name and nobody pays attention to anything I ever write. In fact I don't think anybody ever even reads anything I ever write. But, I do agree that you should be man enough to put your real name to your own words.
- January 9, 2012 at 12:32 PM
- Freddie said...
I always read your comments, both here and at Crooked Timber, with care and interest.
- January 9, 2012 at 12:38 PM
- Paul said...
Cool, Freddie. I never tried to be "anonymous"; I just get asked my GMail address & automatically get labelled "Paul." (Which is weird cause there is more than one "Paul" here.) But for what it's worth my name is Paul Sherrard; I'm the "Paul" who gave you shit over your Dana Stevens post. I don't know how to enter my full name though.
- January 9, 2012 at 6:41 PM
That's a bit sweeping. On occasion I know who the anonymous commenter is,and he'she is Somebody, who knows something about or is connected to the topic at hand.
- January 9, 2012 at 6:47 PM
- Paul Sherrard said...
Ah wait; I think I just figured this out.
OK, Freddie, I agree with your father BTW.
- January 9, 2012 at 6:52 PM
Yup, that GIF is suitable for a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. That's your mental age, five. Don't flatter yourself that the "establishment" is so threatened by your opinion, the "establishment" has no freaking idea who you are. Sorry, dude, you're not as important as you think you are. But hey, continue with your grade-A persecution complex.
- January 9, 2012 at 9:00 PM
- Freddie said...
- January 9, 2012 at 10:46 PM
Well, some of us are just technically inept. I think I established a "google" account, but I've never been able to use it since. I hate Facebook. I have no idea what "open ID means". Passwords are strange things that I always manage to forget.
Life on the internets can be hard at times.
- January 9, 2012 at 11:40 PM
- Freddie said...
That's why I want to give people theoption, Bobby P.
- January 10, 2012 at 8:15 AM
I, like the other anonymous above, cannot figure out any of the other options on blogspot comments. But elsewhere, I usually use consistent pseudonyms (I occasionally post on Crooked Timber as Aulus Gellius).
I have a stronger unwillingness to use my real name than I would have expected myself to have, and I've been trying to figure out why. I've never posted anything that would be likely to lose me a job or a friend or anything; what's more, I don't avoid mentioning personal information in comments. (If you really wanted, you might be able to figure out, by looking through old comments and doing some googling, who I am. But I promise you wouldn't care.)
But while I don't mind someone coming to my comment in a thread and knowing who I am, I really don't like the idea of someone Googling me and finding one of my comments (even one I'm proud of). Not sure why.
- January 12, 2012 at 5:51 PM
Oh, wait, the "URL" part of "Name/URL" is optional. Now I feel like an idiot. The anonymous comment above is, obviously, mine.
- January 12, 2012 at 5:53 PM
Sorry, Freddie - I don't think you can have it both ways. Either you're unafraid of words and ideas or you are. I tend to be just a little afraid, myself.
The internet is what it is, and many people will be jerks in comments because many people are, in fact, jerks. You seem to have no trouble of mind, even with your name emblazoned on your posts. I'm not sure how attaching your name to something makes it ok or interesting or informative to be a jerk.
In my admittedly limited experience with your writing you are sometimes criticized for saying things that are ill-conceived or inexpertly argued. Sometimes you are criticized for being a jerk. Sometimes you walk back your position and your prose and admit to being a jerk. (Search your archives.)
You can attach "tribalist" or "elitist" or "establishmentarian-ist" or "professional-ist" or any other "-ist" you please to your critics and it's still an ad hominem that doesn't answer their criticisms.
As for me, since you asked, I'm all for anonymous speech so long as it falls under the protection of the First Amendment. (That's the little bit of fear I mentioned above.)
Internet pseudonym, insecure as it may be, attached.
- January 18, 2012 at 7:52 PM
- Susan said...
Oh, wait, the "URL" part of "Name/URL" is optional. Now I feel like an idiot. The anonymous comment above is, obviously, mine.
- November 2, 2012 at 6:06 PM


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WASHINGTON, D.C.— Whatever immigration deal might be claimed by labor and business, or by Democrats and Republicans, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is serving notice it has to go through him.
The tea party favorite made it clear over the weekend he has a make-or-break role for the most sweeping immigration changes in decades. It's a high-risk strategy that also puts his presidential ambitions on the line.
Four Republican senators are involved with Democrats in crafting a bipartisan bill to secure the nation's borders, improve legal immigration and offer eventual citizenship to millions now in the U.S. illegally. But only Rubio has the conservative bona fides plus life-story credibility to help steer the bill through the Senate with strong support from the GOP, and give it a chance in the House, where conservative Republicans hold more sway.
More than anyone else, Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, could have the clout to hold off rebellion from conservative talk show hosts and a Republican base whose opposition helped kill immigration changes last time around, in 2007. And perhaps only Rubio could sink the entire effort just by walking away.
If the first-term senator decides against the bill, "that just takes all the oxygen out of the room," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "It may pass the Senate with Democrats' support ... but that's not the kind of support you want out of the Senate if you expect passage out of the House."
With that unique status, Rubio is walking a fine line. He's helping negotiate the politically combustible legislation, which the bipartisan group is expected to unveil next week, while also taking care to maintain the conservative support that makes him so important to the process in the first place.
Rubio also could see the biggest political payoff. Helping shepherd a comprehensive immigration bill to passage could win support from Hispanic voters that could be critical if he runs for president in 2016. GOP nominee Mitt Romney's dismal showing among Hispanic and Asian voters last November helped seal his loss, and McCain and many other Republicans warn that the GOP risks permanent minority status if it doesn't resolve the immigration issue.
"If he's the guy who helps navigate a reform package over the finish line in a way that brings conservatives along and makes Latinos happy, then his viability as a GOP candidate in 2016 goes way up," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a group that advocates a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
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