Free Cybook Opus ebook, Space Shuttle fleet, Can fireworks be seen from space?

[Nostromics Newsletter]

Nostromics Newsletter

Nostromics science gifts product news, educational resources & science tidbits

Nostromics Newsletter, 5 January 2011 - You are welcome to share this mail

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My Cybook Opus Ebook Reader, a free Nostromics ebook

My Cybook Opus Ebook Reader - Adventures of a New User is a new free ebook on digital reading by Paolo Amoroso of Nostromics. You are welcome to freely download and share it under a Creative Commons license.

It tells Paolo's experience in selecting, buying and using a Cybook Opus ebook reading device. The Opus is a popular device manufactured by BOOKEEN. The book is a sort of usage diary of a technically savvy user who is new to the Opus and digital reading. An electronic book or e-book is a publication in digital form suitable for reading on electronic devices.

Do you like My Cybook Opus Ebook Reader? Click the Facebook Like button at the top of the ebook download page, and let us know your feedback.

The Space Shuttle fleet

The NASA Space Shuttle program is scheduled to end in 2011 with the last few planned missions, 30 years after the first launch in 1981. Our Retired Shuttle Atlantis Women's T-Shirt and related Atlantis apparel in the Space section of Nostromics Store celebrate the retirement of the Shuttle fleet after a long and eventful career. We have similar Discovery and Endeavour Shuttle clothing.

Space Shuttle was the first reusable manned spacecraft. NASA built and flew into space 5 Shuttle vehicles. Besides proper names, they have designations like OV-10X where "OV" stands for Orbiter Vehicle (the orbiter is the plane-like part of a Shuttle system), and X is a number denoting a particular item. Atlantis, for example, is OV-104.

The first two Shuttle spacecrafts to fly into space, Columbia and Challenger, were lost together with their crews in the fatal accidents of missions STS-51-L in 1986 and STS-107 in 2003. The current Shuttle fleet includes the remaining 3 vehicles, i.e Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour. The 5 vehicles flew a total of 132 space missions, and a couple more are planned before retirement in 2011.

More science gifts and products at Nostromics Store.

Can fireworks be seen from space?

Fireworks are among the human activities that can be seen from space. For example, astronauts on the International Space Station, which orbits around the Earth, reported seeing the new year's fireworks on the night between 31 December 2010 and 1 January 2011, while flying above a cloudless Western Europe. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, space station commander and Expedition 26/27 crew member, reported that the fireworks look like hundreds of little flashes of light. A spectacular show.

-- Paolo Amoroso & Mauro Arpino (Nostromics), science educators - Milan, Italy

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Copyright (C) 2011 by Paolo Amoroso and Mauro Arpino