Phoenix Landed on Mars..!!

Congratulations...Phoenix successfully landed on Mars a few hours ago. These are unprocessed ,raw images taken by Nasa's Phoenix spacecraft.

Above is a short clip giving an overview on the mission.

SOURCE: NASA

Mission to Mars

Nasa's spacecraft (Phoenix) is due to land in the far north end of Mars in less than 3 hours. Landing on Mars is very challenging and out of the 11 attempts since 1971 only 5 have succeeded.
Phoenix started its journey towards Mars on the 4th of August 2007 after a flawless countdown. The lander will reach the surface of Mars after 10 months of travelling with a distance of 423m miles from earth.
It will stay on Mars for the next 3 Months searching for signs of life by completing a series of sophisticated scientific analysis.
Phoenix is equipped with a robotic arm to dig through the top soil layer to the water ice (thought to be buried below the surface ) and to bring samples of soil and water to the lander platform of which scientific analysis will be carried out on later.

Its destination on Mars is known as 'Vastitas Borealis' ,in a similar location to northern Canada on earth. The last 7 minutes of this mission is the most critical part and if all goes to plan ,Phoneix will become the first spacecraft landing in the Martian Arctic.

You can follow the mission overview on Nasa's website.

Image credit : NASA

Europe's tallest residential tower

Few days ago when my friends and I were hanging about in Manchester I found myself next to a galssy tall tower. I had seen this tower many times before but I had never been next to it. Beetham tower is the most prominent and newest landmark in Manchester. People usually refer to the tower as Hilton hotel. The tower stands 171m and 50 storeys above the city centre at the junction of Densgate. The first 23 floors are occupied by a 5-star Hilton hotel and the remaining 26 floors are residential apartments. The duplex penthouse is occupied by the building's architect ,Ian Simpson for £3m. According to the media this tower is visible from 10 countries. I took a couple of pictures of the tower with my mobile phone.

Answers to the Data Fusion Questions !

Here is the answers to the Data Fusion Exam.
Use your UB number for both the Username and Password.

ANSWERS

I only got one wrong (No.18) in the MCQs and for the rest I guess I'll get a relatively good mark.Please leave your comments below and let everybody know how you did in your exam.

I wish you a very good holiday and good luck with your project.

Secret Army !

As I was flipping through the Tv channels and not finding anything interesting to watch (while preparing for the exams !!) a few days ago,I was surprised to see an old series called 'Secret Army' On UKtv History.

Secret Army was one of the popular drama series in Britain which broadcast for several years on BBC1. It was also broadcast in many countries a few years after the series ended in Britain. I remember watching several episodes with my dad during primary school days. It brings back sweet memories of being a little boy.

The songs in the series was proved so popular and was performed by 'Angela Richards'. The Intro soundtrack is a masterpiece and my favourite.

Urban Wind Energy

With all these energy crisis and ever increasing price of fuel there are many alternative sources of energy which can be used cheaply with one-time setup cost. Wind is one of the greatest sources of energy which is widely used all around the world. But according to the latest figures, the number of wind turbines is not as many as it should be. Hundreds of years ago the first windmill was invented in Persia and it became a popular source of energy for grinding grain and later on was used for pumping water into the farms. In many regions of the world there are certain areas usually on hills which are often windy during the day. I think urban energy receives much less attention than wind farms. Nowadays with all the buildings that are just cracking higher into the sky, a small wind turbine can generate enough electricity to at least light up the common areas inside the buildings.

Recently I have also seen many buildings in England having a couple of turbines on their roofs. There are many projects in the UK researching on how to achieve more energy from wind power more efficiently.

Last December I had a trip to the Netherlands. There is a village near Amsterdam called 'Koog-Zaandjik' which is famous for its historical windmills and is also a great tourist attraction. The village was quite windy when I was touring around and it was a wonder that I only saw three modern wind turbines working at the time !

to Pass or Not to Pass

Guys, You better know what we went through this semester. Data Fusion is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and applicable subjects in every field. But we could never find this out without Dr.Daniel, illustrating the wide applications of Data Fusion nicely on Matlab through his section. Unfortunately we couldn't get much out of the other two sections lectured by Dr.Peng and Dr.Hossein for the reasons you all know about. I think Dr.Daniel as the module coordinator has been great during this semester and we could have ended up in an absolute confusion without his kind support and help. I hope we all do well tommorrow in the exam.

Once again I would like to thank Dr.Daniel on behalf of all WSN students.

DATA FUSION !

Dedicated to the engineering students who are enrolled on Data Fusion but have no access to the computing department webpage.

DATA FUSION

This page is only accessible by Students enrolled for Data fusion.

You need to enter your UB number for both the username and password.

Note:Do not use your password. Only your UB number.