Why Pluto's Portraits Require Patience

After nine and a half years and three billion miles, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zipped past Pluto and its five moons on Tuesday morning. NASA shared the last photo sent back to Earth before the flyby Tuesday, shown here. New Horizons will send back at least one higher-resolution image on Wednesday, but the rest of the photos will remain stuck on the spacecraft for months.

Why? Because sending them back takes lots and lots of time.

Imagine someone speaking to you softly from the other side of a large room. You might be able to barely hear him but to make out the words if he spoke very, very slowly.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at the edge of the solar system, nearly three billion miles away. Its radio transmitter puts out a tiny 12 watts of power, about the same as an LED bulb in a table lamp.

Even with a huge 70-meter radio dish on Earth listening to the faint transmissions, that means New Horizons has to talk very, very slowly.

As New Horizons starts sending its trove of flyby data back on Wednesday, the pace will be at a glacial 1,000 bits a second. That is roughly the rate at which computer modems talked to each other in the mid-1980s.

Photographs taken by the spacecraft's black-and-white camera measure 1,024 pixels by 1,024 pixels, or more than a million pixels in total. Each pixel consists of 12 bits, to record one out of 4,096 possible gray levels. That's more than 12 million bits of information in each picture.

To send that all back at 1,000 bits a second would take 12,000 seconds, or 3 hours and 20 minutes. Images can be compressed, but even if squeezed to a tenth of the original size, one photograph would still take 20 minutes to download.

New Horizons is taking a lot of pictures and collecting a slew of other measurements, too — so much that it would take three months to send all of it back if New Horizons could get exclusive use of NASA's Deep Space Network, the system of radio telescopes that communicates with distant space probes.

But the network is also needed to talk to NASA's many other space probes, so 16 months will pass before scientists can get their hands on all of the data from this week's flyby.

This week, the New Horizons team will retrieve a few choice images and snippets of what they think will be the science highlights.
—KENNETH CHANG

courtesy 0f #TheNewYorkTimes

"They were on their honeymoon".

038 | 1905 | St. Augustine , #Florida . "They were on their honeymoon".

 A Higher Definition photo since 1905 which shows a couple celebrating their honeymoon at the beach of St. Augustine , Florida.

10 reasons to avoid instant noodles...

10 reasons to avoid instant noodles...

just share...

1. Nutrient Absorption : Noodles
inhibit the absorption of nutrients for
the children under 5.

2. Cancer Causing : The ingredient in
the instant noodles called "Styrofoam',
Which is a cancer causing agent.

3. Miscarriage : Women who are
Eating instant noodles during their
pregnancy causes miscarriage, because
it affect the development of a fetus.

4. Junk Food : instant noodles are
enriched with full of carbohydrates,but
no vitamins, fiber and minerals. This
makes the instant noodles considered as
a junk food.

5. Sodium : Instant noodles are power
packed with high amounts of sodium.
Excess consumption of sodium leads to
heart disease, stroke, hypertension and
kidney damage.

6. MSG : Mono-sodium Glutamate is
used to enhance the flavor of instant
noodles. People who are allergic to MSG
consume it as part of their diet, then
they end up suffering from headaches,
facial flushing, pain, burning sensations.

7. Overweight : Eating Noodles is the
leading cause of obesity. Noodles
contains fat and large amounts of
sodium, which causes water retention in
the body and surely it leads to
overweight.

8. Digestion : Instant noodles are bad
for digestive system. Regular
consumption of instant noodles causes
irregular bowl movements and bloating.

9. Polypropylene Glycol : The ingredient in
the instant noodles called "Propylene
Glycol" which has a anti-freeze
property. This ingredient is used
because it prevents the noodles from
drying by retaining moisture. It weakens
the immune system of our body. It is
easily absorbed by the body and it
accumulates in the kidneys, heart and
liver. It causes abnormalities and
damage to those areas.

10. Metabolism : Regular consumption
of instant noodles affect the body's
metabolism, because of the chemical
substances like additives, coloring and
preservatives inside the noodles.

Big Cat-Hercules

The name of this cat is Hercules, a feline Liger, which is cross between a Lion with a Tiger. Ligers usually measure 3.5 to 4 meters long and three year old cubs can weigh up to half a ton.
Hercules holds the Guinness World Record weighing at 900 pounds, he is the largest cat in the world and is 6 feet tall when standing. Although very huge in size, Hercules could run at an astonishing speed of 80 km / hour and can eat 100 pounds of food in one meal

Print your family in 3D Graphics

Print your family in 3D

yes, really its possible now

Rex Features, Twinkind- A company want to make 3D sculptures as common as a family portrait. Hamburg-based Twinkind can create 3D-printed lifelike photo figurines just by scanning a person 'faster than the blink of an eye', just like in photography. Previous approaches have seen subjects having to stand still for up to 20 minutes for computer software to map out their bodies. Please click on the image above to view more of these crazy figurines

A Story With A Moral: Why Should I Marry You?

Once there was a very handsome, pious, well educated young man, whose parents emphasised for him to get married. They had seen so many marriage proposals, and he had turned them all down. The parents thought it was becoming a little ridiculous or suspected that he may have someone else in mind. However every time the parents left the girls house, the young man would always say she’s not the one! The young man only wanted a girl who was religious and practising, however one evening his mother arranged for him, to meet a girl, who was religious, and practising. On that evening, the young men, and the girl, were left to talk, and ask each other question. (As one would expect).

The young man, being a gentleman that he was allowed, the lady to ask first. The young girl asked the young man so many questions, she asked about his life, his education, his friends, his family, his habits, his hobbies, his lifestyle, his enjoyment, his pastime, his experiences, his shoe size, etc. The young man replied to all of her questions, without tiring, and politely, with a smile the young girl took up nearly all of the time, over an hour, and felt bad, and asked the young man do you have any questions? The young man said, “Its ok. I only have 3 questions.” The young girl thought, “Wow, ONLY 3 questions okay.”

The young man’s 1st question was,

Q1: “Who do you love the most in the world, someone whose love nothing would ever overcome?”

A1: She said; “this is an easy question, my mother.” he smiled

Q2: “you said that you read a lot of Qur’an, could you tell me which surahs you know the meaning of?”

A2: Hearing this she went red and embarrassed and said: “I do not know the meaning of any yet, but I am hoping to soon Insha’Allah I’ve just been a bit busy.”

Q3: “I have been approached for my hand in marriage, by girls that are a lot prettier than you why should I marry you?”

A3: Hearing this young girl was outraged, she stormed off to her parents with fury, and said “I do not want to marry this man he is insulting my beauty, and intelligence.”

The young man and his parents were once again, left without an agreement of marriage. This time, the young man’s parents were really angry, and said “what did you do to anger that girl, the family were so nice, and pleasant, and they were religious like you wanted. What did you ask the girl?? Tell us!” The young man said, “1st I asked her, who do you love the most? She said her mother.” the parents said: “so, what is wrong with that?” The young man said: “no one, is Muslim, until he loves Allah, and his Messenger (SAW) more than anyone else in the world’. If a woman loves Allah and Rasulullah (SAW) more than anyone, she will love me and respect me, and stay faithful to me, because of that love, and fear for Allah. And we can share this love, because this love is greater than lust for beauty.”

The young man said: “the 2nd question I asked, you read a lot of Qur’an, can you tell me the meaning of any surah?” And she said no, because I haven’t had time yet. so I thought of that hadith ‘ALL humans, are dead except for those who have knowledge’ She has lived 20 years and not found ANY time, to seek knowledge, why would I marry a woman, who does not know her rights, and responsibilities, and what will she teach my children, except how to be negligent, because the woman IS the madressa (school) and the best of teachers. And a woman, who has no time for Allah, will not have time for her husband.”

“The 3rd question I asked her was that a lot of girls, prettier than her, had approached me for marriage, why should I choose you? That is why she stormed off, getting angry.” The young man’s parents said: “that is a horrible thing to say, why you would do such a thing? we are going back there to apologies.” The young man said: “I said this on purpose, to test whether she could control her anger. Rasulullah (SAW) said ‘do not get angry, do not get angry, do not get angry’ when asked how to become pious; because anger is from Shaytaan. If a woman cannot control her anger with a stranger she has just met, do you think she will be able to control it with her husband?”

The Moral:

• Knowledge, not only out looking- Beauty.

• Practice, not preaching/recitation only (millions of reciters are there). •

Forgiveness, not Anger.

• Spiritual love, not Lust.

• Compromise!

One should look for a person who:

• Has love for Allah and Rasulullah (SAW).

• Has knowledge of the deen, and can act upon it.

• Can control their anger

• Willing to compromise.

It goes both ways, WOMEN SEEKING A MAN, SHOULD LOOK FOR THE SAME THINGS.

Ayesha (RA) reports: “one day I was on a camel which was somewhat difficult to control and the Rasulullah (SAW) remarked “you must be compassionate, whenever there is compassion in something it adorns it, and when it is removed from something it disgraces it.”