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Arquivo para November 12th, 2014

Probe lands on Comet

12 Nov

aRosettaAsked 10 years ago to enter the solar system in orbit, the probe Rosetta has released the module called Philae, which successfully landed on the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it will be in the coming months sending data on the celestial body, announced yesterday the European Space Agency (ESA).
The agency has its headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, announced yesterday the 16h02 (9:02 a.m. EST, Brazil): “We’re in the comet” which caused great excitement in the control center.
The fact is unprecedented in human history, and comets can bring data on the origin of solar systems, about the origin of the universe and even about the origin of life.
After analyzing the telemetry (data travels through the solar system and take almost 30 minutes to reach the earth), it was noticed that the harpoons that hold the probe in the comet did not fire at first, and this attachment can detach the probe before to perform all the desired measures and tests, but maybe the problem is reversed.
Comets travel at very high speeds in the solar system, the P / indicates a comet is periodic with orbital period shorter than 200 years, which makes the calculations a little simpler for landing, but even so it’s like a fly lands on a cannon ball.

 

Most beautiful libraries in the world

12 Nov

BibJoaninaThe Joanina Library of Portugal is a library of the eighteenth century, built in memory of D. João V (1707-1750), father of D. João VI would emigrate to Brazil, it is situated in the Palace of the Schools of the University of Coimbra, in the courtyard the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
Was himself John V who sponsored its construction, and whose portrait by Domenico Duprà (1725), dominates the central space of the Library.
The library contains many books of the fifteenth century when the press began producing the first printed books, but in fact only began receiving the first books after 1750, and today its collections is about 55 thousand books.
A curious fact is that as the University of Coimbra had autonomy (ie not so new) since 1541 had legal autonomy, and thus the University has Judge, Prison Guard and that was not previously in the Library.
It was only in 1773 that the building was transferred to the Baroque Library who recovered and incorporated the remains of what was the former royal palace and prison in documenting the unique medieval chain that still exists in Portugal.