Links to Other Sites

Here are a few links to start you off:

• Physics department homepage
• Dr. Möbius' research group, the Experimental Space Plasma Group
• Your textbook:
  Haliday, Resnick, and Walker
  Fundamentals of Physics
  Published by Wiley Publishers
  The following resources are available:
  
  • Online Resources for Students
  • Interactive Study Guide
    
• The European Lunar Mission SMART-1 is on its slow and winding way towards the moon. At a steady pace the electric propulsion system will get it there within 16 months.
  At the same time the European Mars Express has almost reached the red planet. The lander "Beagle 2" is supposed to land on Mars at Christmas. See where it is right now.
• The most important UNH participation in ESA Missions is on Cluster right now. Cluster has been following the recent solar storms closely.
• As we work several sample problems that allude to the Columbia Disaster on Feb 2, here is the link to NASA's Columbia Homepage. You find the complete accident panel report and a lot of more useful and interesting information.
• Missed a spectacular view of the Leonid meteor stream the last two years on November 18 and 19? Maybe there is another chance this year. Leonids come every year and they may be full of surprises.
  Here are some instructions that work for any meeor shower: Find a dark site. Behind Kingman Farm in Madbury (UNH property) is a reasonable and close example. NASA has set up an observation and tracking program, from which they broadcast data online that are found at spaceweather.com.
  If you want to get some general information on the Leonids, check out Gary Kronk's wonderful website.
• Black Holes anyone? A medium sized one inside a star cluster has been found. How do they do this? We are just learning about the first piece of the puzzle, circular motion as a clue.
• Want to see a test run of the Shuttle main engine live?
• Faster than the speed of light (c)? Don't expect "Warp Drive" and "subspace communication" soon!!
  One of you pointed me to this interesting news item on a new experiment with sending waves at 4 x c.
  However, let me remind you, this doesn't invalidate Einstein's theory of relativity, and it doesn't mean that we could send anything material faster than c. What is going faster is the so-called "phase velocity" of the wave. The velocity relevant to transmit information is the "group velocity" of the wave, and that is still lower than c. You will learn about these things in Phys 408. Even sending information will not be possible faster than c.
• News Flash: Latest Near Earth Object (NEO) [Program for search of potentially dangerous near Earth asteroids and such] appears to be a floating leftover from the Apollo Program. The story on this object continues. The surface seems to match the paint of the Saturn rockets, and it can be traced back to 1971.
• Here is something that the Computer Science students among you may be interested in. To do the long and distant exploration we want to do, a probe has to be "intelligent".
• Interested in the latest on Gravity? ESA is preparing a probe to study Gravity effects in detail.
• Always be careful with recording and analyzing your data! The discovery of Element 118 about 3 years ago has just been retracted, and there is even evidence of 'Data Fabrication'. That is one reason for discouraging to use pencils in the Lab!
• Sometimes it happens: a louded discovery may not have been real. Apparently, some of the recently discovered planets may be illusions (yet only some of them!!). [Link supplied by one of the students in this class.]
• We briefly discussed in the first class why using solar power for deep space missions is a problem. Find more on power for space missions on a NASA Website.
  The story goes on with other possible methods of propulsion to get spacecraft to distant places.
• Here is a challenge for the engineers among you:
  There has been an ongoing debate, whether a "space elevator" may be possible. Some more serious discussions have been underway lately.
• The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the study of the Bose-Einstein Condensate.
  Learn also everything about the history of the Nobel Prize (100 years!), Laureates and how it is awarded on the Nobel e-Museum.
• Here are some other Fun Links to look at:
  • NASA presents interesting News Items to the public on a daily basis
  • Here is the "Space Weather Information" (Solar Flares, Auroras, etc.)
    Space Weather forecast and nowcast are available on the NOAA Website.
  • If you are interested in a zero-g adventure click here
  • We talked about the drag force in air in class, or its high tech name "Aerobraking". It is used for the Mars Odyssey mission. Watch for the events to unfold!
  • See how a satellite is made to fall out of the sky using airdrag.
  • The Ulysses spacecraft passes over the Sun's North Pole (for the second time). How did it get there? We will talk about this trick in Chapter 10 of this course.
  • Interstellar Pickup Ions move along with the solar wind in exactly the same way as the valve on a bicycle wheel. We discuss this "rolling motion" in Chapter 12 of the course. Enjoy a video animation of the Pickup Ion motion in our Movie Theatre. Then go down to "The Interstellar Gas Reveals Itself Through the "Giant Swing". This animation was produced by a UNH Physics student.
    You can find more on the Interstellar Gas on the Interstellar Learning Page (An Online Tutorial).
    The interstellar medium is a hot research topic in Prof. Möbius' group.