Showing results by publisher "Charles River Editors" in Science & Engineering

On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the Space Shuttle Program’s 35th mission, but this was no ordinary mission. In its payload bay, Discovery was carrying the Hubble Space Telescope, with the objective of putting the telescope into orbit.

Today, the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 "winning" the race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the solar system. Moreover, the notion that America "won" the Space Race at the end of the 1960s overlooks just how competitive the Space Race actually was in launching people into orbit.

Imagine a feline with the spirit of a lion, the sneakiness of a puma, the terrifying walk of a black bear, and the strong arms of a gorilla. This amazing creature was best known as the saber-toothed tiger, an animal so fearless, it could beat beasts even twice their size! After dinosaurs, few vanished animals are as famous as the woolly mammoths, or in 18th-century scientist George Cuvier’s words, "some kind of extinct elephant".

Around eight o'clock a.m. on December 26, a massive earthquake registering 9.1-9.3 on the Richter Scale struck off of Sumatra, Indonesia, making it the third strongest earthquake ever recorded by seismographs. On top of that, the earthquake shook for nearly 10 minutes and generated incredibly strong tsunami waves. Thanks to the element of surprise, people in the region had virtually no warning of what was coming. The tsunami waves pulverized entire towns and swept away hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia.

From the dawn of time, man has sought to understand the universe and his place in it. How did the Earth and the Solar System come to be? How was the universe created? Like other scientific disciplines, astronomy and astrophysics is one big detective story. Hypotheses are formed, observations taken, and experiments performed in the search for universal laws that describe all that we see. In this resourceful guide, common and uncommon questions about the universe will be explained in comprehensive but easy-to-understand terms.  

The early history of Earth covers such vast stretches of time that years, centuries, and even millennia become virtually meaningless. Instead, paleontologists and scientists who study geochronology divide time into periods and eras. The current view of science is that Earth is around 4.6 billion years old, and the first four billion years of its development are known as the Precambrian period.

In the decades after the Apollo program, American space shuttles flew over 130 missions and successfully completed over 98 percent of them, but unfortunately, the two most famous missions were the ones that ended tragically aboard the Challenger and Columbia. The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: The History and Legacy of NASA’s Most Notorious Tragedy chronicles the disaster from the origins of the Challenger mission to what went so terribly wrong.

Discover the the life and accomplishments of Max Planck, theoretical physicist whose revolutionary discovery of energy quanta and formulation of fundamental quantum theory allowed for countless others to expand on the knowledge of atomic processes.

Just trying to define a man who had the qualities of a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, inventor, and astrologer can prove difficult. But all of that can be ascribed to Johannes Kepler, one of the giants of his era who ushered in the Scientific Revolution and is often considered the first modern scientist.

The Pleistocene spans a period from around 2.5 million years ago (mya) to just over 12,000 years ago, and it was an epoch of enormous change on Earth, mainly characterized by climate changes involving fluctuations between periods of extreme heat and long periods of glaciation. This period is commonly known as the Ice Age, despite the fact there were actually a number of separate periods of cold. The Pleistocene Era: The History of the Ice Age and the Dawn of Modern Humans looks at the development of the era, what life on Earth was like, and the origins of archaic humans. 

Standing around 10 feet tall and weighing several tons, woolly mammoths seem like the stuff of legend, but ancient cave art indicated that unlike dinosaurs, woolly mammoths were contemporaries of early humans, with the last ones going extinct only about 4,000 years ago. All of that explains why people have long been fascinated by woolly mammoths and have even envisioned bringing them back to life via genetics sometime in the future.

As the oft-repeated and invariably accurate pearl of wisdom goes, a dog truly is man's best friend. For a long time, people have almost universally loved dogs, and it seems to have been that way for at least tens of thousands of years. When affection is abundantly and consistently expressed, this pure, unspoken, wholesome love is one that is very much requited, and then some. This bond can be demonstrated by the mere existence of pet keepers who unironically refer to themselves as “dog parents,” not merely “dog owners”. 

By the time the Hubble telescope reached orbit, it was already the world’s most famous telescope, but it was also the most scorned. The telescope cost nearly two billion dollars more to complete than anticipated, and to make matters worse, the first images it sent back were skewed. However, within about a year of fixing it, the telescope captured images of a major event in the solar system.

Scientists have long attempted to understand Earth’s past, and in service to that effort, they have divided the world’s history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. For example, the current eon is called the Phanerozoic Eon, which means “visible life”. This is the eon in which multicellular life has evolved and thrived. Before this, life was microscopic (single cells).

The oceans of the world have always had an air of mystery. About 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water, and until the 20th century no one had plumbed its depths. Even today the bigger seas and oceans remain a largely unexplored frontier, with new species being discovered every year. Thus it comes as no surprise that countless legends have arisen of strange creatures lurking in the depths.

On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the Space Shuttle Program’s 35th mission, but this was no ordinary mission. In its payload bay, Discovery was carrying the Hubble Space Telescope, with the objective of putting the telescope into orbit. By the time the Hubble telescope reached orbit, it was already the world’s most famous telescope, but it was also the most scorned. The telescope cost nearly $2 billion more to complete than anticipated, and to make matters worse, the first images it sent back were skewed. 

As technological advances and the creation of flying aircraft became realities, the sighting of UFOs increased, as did the interest in potential contact with aliens. It would hardly be groundbreaking for scientists in the 20th century to have a lunchtime discussion in which the search for extraterrestrial life arises, and the question of where it might reside is innocuous enough. However, a furor was created somewhat innocently when physicist Enrico Fermi voiced his “casual lunchtime remark” in the presence of colleagues in 1950.

The early history of Earth covers such vast stretches of time that years, centuries, and even millennia become virtually meaningless. Instead, paleontologists and scientists who study geochronology divide time into periods and eras. What humans commonly refer to as the “Ice Age” is actually a series of fluctuating climate events that have occurred throughout the planet’s history. These ongoing historical phenomena are difficult to conceptualize because of both the time frame involved and the natural process by which they cyclically unfold. 

Michael Faraday: The Life and Legacy of the Influential 19th Century Scientist Who Pioneered Electromagnetism examines the life and work that made Faraday one of history’s most important scientists. You will learn about Michael Faraday like never before.  

Project Gemini is a neglected part of the US space program. Sandwiched between the excitement of Project Mercury and the sending of the first American astronauts to space and the euphoria of the Apollo Moon landings, Gemini was a step forward rather than a dramatic leap. However, this project achieved many important firsts, including the first spacewalk, the first rendezvous and docking between two spacecraft, the first flights of more than one week’s duration, and many more.