Signed spacecrafts, Great scientists, Elements named after planets

[Nostromics Newsletter]

Nostromics Newsletter

Nostromics science gifts product news, educational resources & science tidbits

Nostromics Newsletter, 26 January 2011 - You are welcome to share this mail

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Signed spacecrafts

As with ships at sea, crews of space missions may be so proud of their spacecrafts that at times they even leave signed handwritten notes inside.

Days after returning from the historical Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in July 1969, while still on the recovery ship, astronaut Michael Collins went back inside the Columbia Command Module and wrote on a panel the note "Spacecraft 107 - alias Apollo 11 alias 'Columbia' The Best Ship to Come Down the Line. God Bless Her."

STS-132, flown in May 2010, was the last scheduled mission of Space Shuttle Atlantis. While inspecting the spacecraft on the ground after the flight, NASA technicians found an STS-132 mission decal with a note signed by all crew members. It says: "The first, last flight of Atlantis left Earth on 14 May 2010 from Pad 39A". The decal and note are deep inside a storage locker of Atlantis. This place is virtually inaccessible on Earth without standing on one's head, so the astronauts must have written the note while still floating in space.

Great scientists

What if your dream team of great scientists of the past signed your bag, maybe a bag you use to carry science books? We are afraid you can not do that without a time machine, but the Nostromics Great Scientists Signatures Tote Bag may be the next best thing. It features reproductions of the signatures of some of the greatest scientists of the past. We have other apparel and gifts with similar designs, like the Great Scientists Signatures Sweatshirt and more in the Scientists signatures section of Nostromics Store.

The designs include reproductions of the signatures of Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Leonhard Euler, Michael Faraday, Galileo Galilei, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Lord Kelvin, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur and Tycho Brahe..

More science gifts and products at Nostromics Store.

Chemical elements named after planets

When planet Uranus was first observed in 1781, it made sensation. Back then the only known planets were the ones visible to the naked eye and known since antiquity. Uranus, too dim to be seen without optical aid, was the first such object discovered with a telescope. So, in 1789, the newly discovered chemical element Uranium was named after planet Uranus.

A few decades later new Solar System objects were discovered, Ceres in 1801 and Pallas in 1802. They are a dwarf planet and an asteroid, i.e. small objects orbiting the Sun, but at the time they were considered planets. Other chemical elements discovered a few years later, in 1803, were named after them: Cerium after Ceres and Palladium after Pallas. Neptunium, found in 1940, got the name of Neptune, discovered in 1846. It was the last chemical element with a name related to a planet.

Did you like this issue of Nostromics Newsletter? Forward to friends who may be interested.

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

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Copyright (C) 2011 by Paolo Amoroso and Mauro Arpino