Jerry Buss (1933 – 2013)... Thank you, Dr. Buss, for making the Los Angeles Lakers one of the greatest franchises in sports history. May You Rest In Peace.

Happy Birthday, Michael Jordan! The greatest player in the history of the NBA turns 50 today. Wow. It still feels like MJ just won his 6th NBA title only a few years ago, after doing that push-off against Bryon Russell to make the winning shot in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. Speaking of the '98 Finals—the series took place during the week I graduated from high school. Back in the days... It's too bad Facebook is slowly eradicating whatever nostalgia I have left of those four blissful (hah!) years. Too lazy to elaborate on this. That is all.

Let's Party Like It's 1908! How ironic... Russia can't seem to send spacecraft out into deep space (Fobos-Grunt, Mars '96 and every other Red Planet-bound probe built by the former superpower), and yet huge objects from deep space keep finding their way into the atmosphere above our ex-Cold War nemesis. First Tunguska (which bore the wrath of what may have been a comet in 1908) and now this. You keep being the target of asteroids/comets/whatever while we plan on sending astronauts to one, fellow Muscovites (even though the meteor didn't strike anywhere near Moscow). Yay for American arrogance! Carry on.

Artwork of the Day... With recent news that everyone's favorite bounty hunter (no, not Jamie Foxx's Django...or Attack of the Clones' Jango) might be getting his own Star Wars spin-off film, here's a cool illustration that I just stumbled upon showing Boba Fett rocketing out of the Sarlacc Pitt following the events of Return of the Jedi (ROTJ). Of course— Boba escaping from Tatooine's desert vagina (yea, I said that out loud) and Darth Maul coming back from the dead in The Clone Wars animated series after being sliced-and-diced by Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace reeks of Expanded Universe lameness...but if the Boba movie does show a quick shot of the Mandalorian flying away from the Great Pit of Carkoon (RE: Sarlacc), I won't mind. Presumably, this scene would take place at either the beginning or end of the film, but it would remain to be seen if Lawrence Kasdan's screenplay recaps events of ROTJ (even though this solo flick is supposedly set to take place between The Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ; Shadows of the Empire be damned) that led to Boba almost being slowly digested for a thousand years within the desert vagina. Or...this scene will play out without any explanation and make an assumption that everyone in the audience saw ROTJ beforehand. Much to ponder about, we have. (FYI, I'm indifferent to Yoda having his own movie.)


Image courtesy of the Star Wars Fanbase - Facebook.com

NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Curiosity Update...

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NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample (Press Release - February 9)

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars.

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill.

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed now is a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America."

For the next several days, ground controllers will command the rover's arm to carry out a series of steps to process the sample, ultimately delivering portions to the instruments inside.

"We commanded the first full-depth drilling, and we believe we have collected sufficient material from the rock to meet our objectives of hardware cleaning and sample drop-off," said Avi Okon, drill cognizant engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena.

Rock powder generated during drilling travels up flutes on the bit. The bit assembly has chambers to hold the powder until it can be transferred to the sample-handling mechanisms of the rover's Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device.

Before the rock powder is analyzed, some will be used to scour traces of material that may have been deposited onto the hardware while the rover still was on Earth, despite thorough cleaning before launch.

"We'll take the powder we acquired and swish it around to scrub the internal surfaces of the drill bit assembly," said JPL's Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer. "Then we'll use the arm to transfer the powder out of the drill into the scoop, which will be our first chance to see the acquired sample."

"Building a tool to interact forcefully with unpredictable rocks on Mars required an ambitious development and testing program," said JPL's Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system."To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock on Earth."

Inside the sample-handling device, the powder will be vibrated once or twice over a sieve that screens out any particles larger than six-thousandths of an inch (150 microns) across. Small portions of the sieved sample will fall through ports on the rover deck into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. These instruments then will begin the much-anticipated detailed analysis.

The rock Curiosity drilled is called "John Klein" in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011. Drilling for a sample is the last new activity for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which is using the car-size Curiosity rover to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater has ever offered an environment favorable for life.

JPL manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Photos of the Day... A few hours ago, I drove down to Costa Mesa in Orange County to attend a cooking demo by Whitney Miller...who won Season 1 of the FOX TV show MasterChef back in 2010. The last time I saw Ms. Miller in person was almost three years ago, when she did a previous cooking demo at the Anaheim Convention Center...also in Orange County (right across the street from Disneyland). Unlike that presentation however, I actually got to taste samples of the desserts that Miller taught the audience today. She showed us how to prepare two delicious pastries: the crispy coconut bites with chocolate sauce as well as molten lava cakes—the latter shown at the very bottom of this Blog entry. FYI, this is probably the first time I took a picture of my own food. I'm like a typical Asian. The only difference is, I didn't post this image on Instagram. Of course, it's because I don't have an iPhone.

D. Aguilar / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Kepler Update... In a topic that could be discussed in a future episode of The Big Bang Theory (just thought I'd bring that show up since I mentioned it in my previous post... Consistency, consistency, consistency), here's an interesting news release about how habitable planets may be more abundant in our galaxy (and closer to Earth) than we thought. Excelsior! (Got that line from the recent Oscar-nominated flick, Silver Linings Playbook.)

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Kepler Data Suggest Earth-size Planets May Be Next Door (Press Release - February 6)

Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) estimate that six percent of red dwarf stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distances from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.

The majority of the sun's closest stellar neighbors are red dwarfs. Researchers now believe that an Earth-size planet with a moderate temperature may be just 13 light-years away.

"We don't know if life could exist on a planet orbiting a red dwarf, but the findings pique my curiosity and leave me wondering if the cosmic cradles of life are more diverse than we humans have imagined," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist, NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The research team analyzed 95 planet candidates in the Kepler catalog orbiting 64 red dwarf stars. Most of these candidates aren't the right size or temperature to be considered Earth-like, as defined by the size relative to Earth and the distance from the host star. However, three candidates are both temperate and smaller than twice the size of Earth.

Red dwarf stars are smaller, cooler, and fainter than the sun. An average red dwarf is only one-third as large and one-thousandth as bright as the sun. Consequently, the not too hot or not too cold habitable zone would be much closer to a cooler star than it is to the sun.

"This close-in habitable zone around cooler stars makes planets more vulnerable to the effects of stellar flares and gravitational interactions, complicating our understanding of their likely habitability," said Victoria Meadows, professor at the University of Washington and principal investigator with the NASA Astrobiology Institute. "But, if the planets predicted by this study are indeed found very nearby, then it will make it easier for us to make the challenging observations needed to learn more about them, including whether or not they can or do support life."

The three planetary candidates highlighted in this study are Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) 1422.02, which is 90 percent the size of Earth in a 20-day orbit; KOI-2626.01, 1.4 times the size of Earth in a 38-day orbit; and KOI-854.01, 1.7 times the size of Earth in a 56-day orbit.

Located between 300 to 600 light-years away, the three candidates orbit stars with temperatures ranging from 3,400 to 3,500 degrees Kelvin. By comparison, the temperature of the sun is nearly 5,800 degrees Kelvin.

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone. Kepler is detecting planets and possible candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help scientists better understand our place in the galaxy.

Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

The Big Bang Theory... I'm almost three months late, but I finally got around to watching "The 43 Peculiarity" episode of The Big Bang Theory...which is where Penny (Kaley Cuoco) finally mentions the "L" word to Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki). (I was at work when the episode originally aired on November 15, FYI.) Call me a hopeless romantic—okay, don't—but I think that Leonard and Penny, if they haven't achieved this already, will become the new Jim and Pam Halpert once NBC's The Office finally shuts it doors this spring (even though The Big Bang is only two seasons younger than The Office...which premiered in 2005 while Leonard and Penny had that first awkward encounter outside of her apartment in '07). Check out the clip at the bottom of this entry where Penny finally tells her Hobbit-like boyfriend that she loves him. Oh, and posting this entry also gave me an excuse to feature a screencap of Sheldon Cooper's gorgeous assistant, Alex (Margo Harshman), as she tried putting the moves on Leonard (who eventually notices her flirtations a few episodes later) as well. Carry on.

Super Bowl 47... First and foremost, how much was Bar Refaeli paid to give up her dignity on Go Daddy's TV spot like that? I heard it took her 65 takes (or was it 45? Either way: WOW) to make that (French) kiss with the nerd look believable. (Though I bet the lucky actor will be thinking about this ad for...the entire year or two.) At least this ad actually got people talking about it. Score one for raunchiness. Anyways, the Seth Rogen-Paul Rudd Samsung commercial cracked me up... That Paul Harvey-narrated Dodge Ram spot made me mutter "What the f**k was that??" after it aired... I'm annoyed that the Iron Man 3 ad was meant to draw attention to the movie's fan page on friggin' Facebook... The Star Trek Into Darkness teaser makes me even more stoked that J.J. Abrams will be directing Star Wars: Episode VII... And I'm surprised that CBS aired that Carl's Jr. topless-beach-bathe commercial, after the flack the network caught following Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction almost 10 years ago. I also can't believe that Red Bull's latest kickass ad (shown at the bottom of this entry) wasn't featured during the Super Bowl broadcast! But at least a Toyota Tundra spot featuring space shuttle Endeavour's move across L.A.'s 405 freeway last year was aired during the trophy presentation.




collectSPACE.com / Robert Z. Pearlman


Harry How / Getty Images

Oh, and the San Francisco 49ers almost made a comeback against the Baltimore Ravens after that 30-plus minute power outage at the Superdome tonight. But who here actually watches the Super Bowl for the football game? I kid.

Quote of the Day... Are you reading this, Asian parents (specifically those who are Chinese, Indian or Filipino)?