Sorting Out Science

This week’s image (a panorama) comes from Utah, not far from Mexican Hat:

This formation is called the Goosenecks — it’s a stretch of the San Juan river where river meanders have eroded straight down over millennia (the official term is “entrenched river meanders”). As a result, the canyons are now more than 1,000 feet (300 m) deep, such that the walls separating opposite sides of a loop create thin natural land bridges. The meanders are so tightly wrapped (the river originally worked its way lazily across a plain here, before the plateau was uplifted) that a raft would travel for 5 miles along the river while only progressing 1 linear mile toward Lake Powell.

From here, the San Juan flows in a relatively straight fashion to its confluence with the Colorado river.

Technorati Tags: Geology

Following up on yesterday’s theme, here’s the official trailer for International Year of Astronomy 2009:

Technorati Tags: Astronomy, IAU, IYA2009, UNESCO

And welcome to the International Year of Astronomy 2009!

It’s the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of a telescope to conduct astronomical observations, so the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have joined forces to “help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery.”

OK, I’ll admit, that sounds pretty much like a boilerplate proclamation.

But the point of IYA2009 is to stimulate interest world-wide, and particularly among young people, in astronomy and science. It will involve a series of events and activities across the globe, as well as in cyberspace.

So do please check out the IYA2009 web site — there’s lots to absorb there. And keep a lookout for associated events in your neighborhood — there’s bound to be something related at some point in the year. Meanwhile, all sorts of blogs (SOS included) will be putting a special focus on astronomy-related topics this year. I’ll be leading off my own little effort with a podcast episode (yes, believe it or not!) on exoplanets in the next few days…

Technorati Tags: Astronomy, IAU, IYA2009, UNESCO

Things are a bit thin this week (likely due to the crush of holiday merry-making), but just the same, there’s plenty of good reading in the past week’s crop of blog carnivals:

All Things Eco Blog Carnival Volume Thirty One

Carnival of the Green

Friday Ark #223

Grand Rounds 5.15: At the interface of evolution and medicine

Technorati Tags: Biology, Carnivalia, Humanity

This week’s image (a bit delayed due to the holidays) is of an F-4 “Phantom” fighter, waiting for renovation at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Titusville, Florida:

In particular, the starring attraction in this shot is a piece of hardware called a splitter plate — it’s the vertical, wedge-shaped thing just ahead of the engine intake.

Quite a few jet aircraft have either a splitter plate, or a lip on the engine inlet(s) that’s shaped to accomplish the same thing — maybe you’ve noticed this before, maybe not. At any rate, splitter plates exist for a very practical reason — they dramatically improve the performance of the plane. Every part of the aircraft in flight is surrounded by what’s called the boundary layer — a relatively thin layer of air next to the body of the plane, moving smoothly (but much more slowly than the main airstream) along the craft. If it weren’t for the splitter plates, the jet engines would be ingesting quite a bit of this slow air (as opposed to the faster air the plane is moving through, dramatically decreasing the jet’s thrust.

In the case of the F-4, the splitter plate has one additional trick up its mechanical sleeve. You can see that there’s a vertical seam in the middle of the plate — while the front part of the splitter plate is fixed, the rear part is hinged. In this way, the rear of the splitter plate can be used to reduce the amount of air entering the jet’s engines during high speed flight. That little post you can see jutting out into the inlet is an airflow sensor, used to control the position of the splitter plate’s ramp.

Technorati Tags: aircraft, flight, jet, Technology