Swift Glider

This model airplane is designed to resemble the Swift bird, which conveys information about NASA’s Swift gamma-ray burst Explorer mission. Educational levels: Informal education, General public

GLAST Launch Fact Sheet

This four-page color brochure describes the science of NASA’s GLAST mission, as well as providing tables that summarize the instrumental parameters and the mission participants. Note: In 2008, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) was renamed Fermi, for the physicist Enrico Fermi. Educational levels: General public

Fourteen Years of Education and Public Outreach for the Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer Mission

The Sonoma State University (SSU) Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) group leads the Swift Education and Public Outreach program. For Swift, we have previously implemented broad efforts that have contributed to NASA's Science Mission Directorate E/PO portfolio across many outcome areas. Our current focus is on highly-leveraged and demonstrably successful activities, including the wide-reaching Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, and our popular websites: Epo's Chronicles and the Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) Skymap. We also make major contributions working collaboratively through the Astrophysics Science Education and Public Outreach Forum (SEPOF) on activities such as the on-line educator professional development course NASA's Multiwavelength Universe. Past activities have included the development of many successful education units including the GEMS Invisible Universe guide, the Gamma-ray Burst Educator's guide, and the Newton's Laws Poster set; informal activities including support for the International Year of Astronomy, the development of a toolkit about supernovae for the amateur astronomers in the Night Sky Network, and the Swift paper instrument and glider models.Comment: 7th Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium, GRB 2013: paper 42 in eConf Proceedings C130414

Using the Big Ideas in Cosmology to Teach College Students

Recent advances in our understanding of the Universe have revolutionized our view of its structure, composition and evolution. However, these new ideas have not necessarily been used to improve the teaching of introductory astronomy students. In this project, we have conducted research into student understanding of cosmological ideas so as to develop effective web-based tools to teach basic concepts important to modern cosmology. The tools are intended for use at the introductory college level. Our research uses several instruments, including open-ended and multiple choice surveys conducted at multiple institutions, as well as interviews and course artifacts at one institution, to ascertain what students know regarding modern cosmological ideas, what common misunderstandings and misconceptions they entertain, and what sorts of materials can most effectively overcome student difficulties in learning this material. These data are being used to create a suite of interactive, web-based tutorials that address the major ideas in cosmology using real data. Having students engage with real data is a powerful means to help students overcome certain misconceptions. Students master the scientific concepts and reasoning processes that lead to our current understanding of the universe through interactive tasks, prediction and reflection, experimentation, and model building.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102

Laboratory Assessment of the Infiltration Capacity Reduction in Clogged Porous Mixture Surfaces

Permeable pavements have been used widely across the world to manage urban stormwater. The hydrological behaviour of permeable surfaces is a complex process affected by many factors, such as rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, pavement geometrical conditions, and clogging level of the permeable surface, amongst others. This laboratory study was carried out to assess the influence of clogging level and rainfall intensity on the infiltration capacity of porous mixture surfaces used in Permeable Pavement Systems (PPS). Porous Concrete (PC) and Porous Asphalt (PA) mixtures with different air void contents (15%, 20%, and 25%) were subject to different clogging scenarios by using varying sediment loads (0, 500, and 1000 g/m2). Permeability experiments were carried out for each clogging scenario through a new rainfall simulator specially developed, tailored, and calibrated for the laboratory simulation of a wide range of rainfall events. Permeability measurements were taken under all different scenarios as a result of the combination of the different rainfall events (50, 100, and 150 mm/h) simulated over the specimens of porous mixtures and the sediment loads applied to them. The results showed that the PC mixtures tested perform better than the PA ones in terms of infiltration capacity, showing less potential for clogging and being more easily cleaned by the wash-off produced by the simulated rainfall events

Eclipse Timings of the LMXB XTE J1710-281: Orbital Period Glitches

We present an X-ray eclipse timing analysis of the transient low mass X-ray binary XTE J1710-281. We report observations of 57 complete X-ray eclipses, made with the proportional counter array detectors aboard the RXTE satellite. Using the eclipse timing technique, we have derived a constant orbital period of 0.1367109674 (3) d, during the period from MJD 52132 upto MJD 54410; and 1{\sigma} limits of -1.6 $\times$ 10^ -12 d d-1 and 0.2 $\times$ 10^ -12 d d-1 , on the period derivative. This puts constraints on the minimum timescale of secular orbital period evolution of 2.34 $\times$ 10^8 yr for a period decay and 18.7 $\times$ 10^8 yr for a period increase. We also report detection of two instances of discontinuity in the mid-eclipse time, one before and one after the above MJD range. These results are interpreted as three distinct epochs of orbital period in XTE J1710-281. We have put lower limits of 1.4 ms and 0.9 ms on orbital period change at successive epochs.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Main Journal, 5 pages, 3 figure

BeppoSAX observation of the eclipsing dipping X-ray binary X1658-298

Results of a 2000 August 12-13 BeppoSAX observation of the 7.1 hr eclipsing, dipping, bursting, transient, low-mass X-ray binary (LMXRB) X1658-298 are presented. The spectrum outside of eclipses, dips and bursts can be modeled by the combination of a soft disk-blackbody and a harder Comptonized component with a small amount (1.3 10E21 atom/cm2) of low-energy absorption. In contrast, an RXTE observation 18 months earlier during the same outburst, measured an absorption of 5.0 10E22 atom/cm2. Such a change is consistent with a thinning of the accretion disk as the outburst progresses. Structured residuals from the best-fit spectral model are present which are tentatively identified with Ne-K/Fe-L and Fe-K shell emission. The spectral changes during dips are complex and may be modeled by a strong (~3 10E23 atom/cm2) increase in absorption of the Comptonized component only, together with reductions in normalizations of both spectral components. This behavior is in contrast to the ``complex continuum'' model for X-ray dip sources, where the softer blackbody component rapidly suffers strong absorption. It is however, similar to that found during recent XMM-Newton observations of the eclipsing, dipping, LMXRB EXO0748-676.Comment: 11 pages. Accepted for publication in A&A