NASA’s Messenger fetches first orbital photo of Mercury

NASA's Messenger spacecraft, the first ever to enter the orbit of Mercury, has fetched its first photo, the project's website said.

The image, the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit around Mercury, was taken as the spacecraft sailed high above the planet's south pole. It features portions of Mercury's surface not previously seen by spacecraft.

"The first images from orbit and the first measurements from Messenger's other payload instruments are only the opening trickle of the flood of new information that we can expect over the coming year," the website quoted Messenger Principal Investigator Sean Solomon as saying.

"The orbital exploration of the Solar System's innermost planet has begun."

The image was acquired as engineers checked how the spacecraft's systems are sustaining Mercury's harsh thermal environment after all equipment was turned on March 23. The scientific mission will begin on April 4.

"Instrument checkout has been proceeding according to plan," the scientist said.

It took the spacecraft more than six years to enter the orbit of Mercury, the least explored terrestrial planet of the inner Solar system.

To reach its destination point, the spacecraft, launched in 2004, covered more than 7.8 billion km. It followed a complicated route through the inner solar system, which included one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury.

Mercury is the smallest and the densest planet among the four terrestrial planets. It also has the oldest surface and the largest daily variations in surface temperature.

Before the Messenger mission, only 45 per cent of the surface of Mercury had been photographed by a spacecraft. The previous mission was Mariner-10, launched in the 1970s.

WWW inventor favours mobiles to widen web access

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW), Thursday called for use of mobile technology to make the web available to a large number of people in countries with low levels of Internet penetration like India.

He underlined the need to teach people to build websites which work well on mobile phones and said the entrepreneurs can build an economy using this technology.

"This will also help in improving education, healthcare and economic status of people," he told reporters during the 20th International World Wide Web Conference here.

Berners-Lee, who is also the director of World Wide Web Foundation, which funds and coordinates efforts to further the potential of the web, said the foundation had also taken up some projects to teach people to build websites which work on mobile phones.

He said while India may have its share of problems, no country was perfect. He pointed out that even in the US and several so-called developed countries, there were many towns with either no Internet connection or no choice of Internet providers.

On the idea of voice-based search for people who are uneducated, he said the foundation was already working on the technology.

"Somebody has to provide a gateway running a programme which uses special web pages to do the dialogue. It is only the start to what could be an important section of web to get people who have no access to the web at the moment become part of the Internet society," he said.

Earlier, delivering the keynote address, Berners-Lee emphasised on the need to consider access to the Internet on par with any other civil right. Finland has already accepted access to the Internet as a human right.

The Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) said it was important to progress towards the idea of the Internet as a neutral media that was not controlled by large corporates or governments.

"Today, Egypt is communicating online with the people. The common man is in a position to give feedback to the government," he said, referring to the recent revolution in the north African country.

Berners-Lee said the issue of Internet governance and a mechanism to control international cyber crime was complicated.

"There is a problem of jurisdiction. There is a problem of coordination among law enforcement services across different countries. Which aspect of Internet should be governed by what sort of international organisation. Currently, there is a lot of discussion going on whether it should be done through countries or independently," he said.

Soviet Union lied about Gagarin space mission: Book

Officials of the erstwhile Soviet Union "lied" about the success of the historic flight into space that carried Yuri Gagarin by covering up the fact that he landed over 300 km away from where he was expected, says a new book.

The Soviet Union portrayed the mission - the first manned flight into space in 1961 - as a "glitch-free triumph".

However, a new book - titled "108 Minutes That Changed the World" - published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight says that scientists twice miscalculated where he would land.

That was why there was nobody there to meet Gagarin when he finally touched down, the Daily Telegraph reported.

"For many years Soviet literature claimed that Yuri Gagarin and his Vostok landing capsule had come down in the area it was supposed to," says the book.

"This information was far from the truth," it said, adding that space experts were expecting him to land almost 250 miles further south.

"So it turned out that nobody was waiting or looking for Yuri Gagarin. Therefore the first thing he had to do after landing was set off to look for people and communications so he could tell the leadership where he was."

The Soviets also lied about the manner of his landing. They said he had touched down inside the capsule itself when in fact he landed separately via parachute.

The reason the experts lied was because of rules that would have prevented them from officially registering the flight as a world record, says the book.

The book by Russian journalist Anton Pervushin published a letter Gagarin wrote to his family before the mission in which he thought about his own mortality, telling his wife not to "die of grief" if he never returned.

Gagarin said he hoped they would never have to read his words.

"But sometimes people slip on even ground and break their neck," he wrote.

"Something could also happen here. If it does I ask you Valyusha (his wife) not to die of grief. After all life is life and there is no guarantee for anybody that tomorrow a car might not end ones life," the letter said.

In 1957, Soviets had sent a dog named Laika into space only to see her die within hours from overheating.

Gagarin's wife finally got to read his letter in 1968 after his tragic death in a plane crash at the age of 34.

Facebook to be worth $234 billion by 2015

Facebook will have market value of $234 billion by 2015, up from its current valuation of $85 billion, according to an analysis by brokerage firm Wedbush Securities that analyzes the valuations of private companies.

Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner, who made this guess in a report last week on the what he called the 'Second Internet', says by 2015 Facebook will earn $11 billion on $22 billion and have a market value of $234 billion, Business Insider said Thursday.

"That makes the company's recent second market valuation of $85 billion look like a fine deal indeed,'' the business web site said.

In his earlier predictions in February 2010, Kerner had said that Facebook might be worth $100 billion by 2015.

But he now thinks Facebook's margins are better - around 50 per cent - and that it will get a bigger share of the global ad market, according to the portal.

The analyst also believes "that other revenue sources - like Credits - will scale faster than he originally anticipated.''

Referring to the quick rise of companies as different as Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, The Huffington Post and Quora, the Wedbush Securities analysis says they are all player in what it calls the 'Second Internet'.''

Because of the social nature of this rising internet companies, the analysis describes this phenomenon as the rise of the 'Social Internet.'

According to the report, only one technology company - Apple - has a current higher market cap of $321 billion than that predicted for Facebook by 2015.

Hi-tech camera can make your pics better looking

Every girl wishes she could dab on some makeup to improve her looks before getting her picture clicked. Now, Panasonic's Lumin DMC-FX77 includes a built-in 'Beauty Retouch' mode which aims to whiten teeth, put colour on your cheeks and reduce wrinkles.

The airbrushing software on the camera, which includes a16 megapixel sensor and 3.5in TFT Touch Screen LCD display will even add makeup and smooth skin, the makers say.

Different modes aim to do different things to portraits and pictures of your face. Esthetic for example can clean up skin and teeth, the Daily Mail reports.

Several grades of 'face fixing' can be applied to pictures, the more intense levels can lead to the subject of the photo being more terrifying than attractive. Make-up mode is perhaps the most interesting.

Here, you are presented with a choice of colours and tones to apply foundation, blush and even lipstick.

The selection of colours range from subtle light brown eye shadow to a more shocking pink.

However, without yet fully testing the product, it is hard to say whether the end results can truly be seen as a real improvement.

But from pictures seen, before and after images show people being transformed into either super smooth skinned subjects with incredibly white teeth, or daubed in seemingly thick layers of makeup.

Best results are, apparently, achieved using Esthetic mode, which at between 60 or 80 per cent with 'head to shine removal' applied is said to gently glam up one's face.

The camera is essentially the European version of the Japanese Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP7.

Breakthrough could help hydrogen replace petrol as fuel

Hydrogen fuel could become viable as an eco-friendly alternative to petrol, thanks to a new process that allows it to be stored cheaply and practicably.

The technology utilises materials that soak up hydrogen like a sponge, and then encapsulates them in tiny plastic beads so small they behave like a liquid.

The process, based on a new way of producing nano-fibres from hydrides, is being developed by Cella Energy, a spin-off from UK Rutherford Appleton Lab.

The technique allows hydrogen to be released at a much faster rate and at lower temperatures than before, researchers said, the Daily Mail reports.

"What we've been doing is taking these materials and encasing them in plastic and making them into a very fine powder and that improves their properties," said Stephen Bennington, Cella Energy Chief Scientific Officer.

"It also means you can pump it like a fluid and it's safe. It is not gong to easily burst into flames," he said.

Hydrogen produces only water when it is burned and is considered an ideal solution to cutting carbon emissions from petrol or diesel vehicles, which are estimated to cause 25 per cent of all carbon release.

But until now, attempts to store hydrogen have not been consumer-friendly so this has not been a viable option. Cella Energy Ltd say their technology would allow people to use the carbon-free fuel with their existing car after a few modifications.