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Not Quite A Planet

Astronomers have dubbed it 'Quaoar' (pronounced kwa-whar) after a Native American god. It lies a billion kilometers beyond Pluto and moves around the Sun every 288 years in a near-perfect circle. Until recently it was just a curious point of light. That's all astronomers could see when they discovered it June, 2002 using a ground-based telescope. ...

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Quaoar
Geology

Was That The Big One? Depends On How You Measured It.

The severity of an earthquake can be expressed in terms of both intensity and magnitude. However, the two terms are quite different, and they are often confused. Intensity is based on the observed ... Continue reading

TheBigOne
Geology

Getting Burned By Acid Rain

If we measure the pH of distilled water, we will find that it is most often in the middle of the pH scale (7) - not too acidic, not too basic. Rainwater, without a lot of outside contaminants, tends ... Continue reading

AcidRain
Biology

Spiders and Their Venom

Spiders, which have been around for about 300 million years, are built differently from insects. They have eight legs, not six, and their bodies are divided into two sections, not three. Entomologists ... Continue reading

SpidersVenom
Medicine

Legionnaires' Disease

Legionnaires' disease, which is also known as Legionellosis, is a form of pneumonia. It is often called Legionnaires' disease because the first known outbreak occurred in the Bellevue Stratford Hotel ... Continue reading

LegionnairesDisease

Wernher Von Braun

VonBraunWernher Von Braun was one of the world's first and foremost rocket engineers and a leading authority on space travel. His will to expand man's knowledge through the exploration of space led to the development of the Explorer satellites, the Jupiter and Jupiter-C rockets, Pershing, the Redstone rocket, Saturn rockets, and Skylab, the world's first space station. Additionally, his determination to 'go where no man has gone before' led to mankind setting foot on the moon.

Living in Huntsville, Alabama from 1950 to 1970, Dr. von Braun first directed the technical development of the U.S. Army's ballistic missile program at Redstone Arsenal, and later served as Director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. When he transferred to Washington, D.C., he left Huntsville with a rich legacy: the research institutions at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the Alabama Space and Rocket Center, and the Von Braun Civic Center.