How do mirrors actually work?

Why do mirrors flip faces horizontally but not vertically? James May explains, with the help of a very childish prank.

A mirror is made from a sheet of glass with reflective material applied to one side. It is like an old fashioned transparency photograph viewed the wrong way around. It doesn't reverse left and right, it reverses back to front. As James May explains this is nothing to do with the mirror itself, the writing appears back to front in a mirror because we present it back to front.

Chinese man has new nose grown on forehead

A man from China's Fujian province has had a new nose grown on his forehead following a traffic accident last year.

The 22-year-old man suffered severe nasal trauma and his subsequent treatment caused his nasal cartilage to corrode. Surgeons came up with the idea of growing a nose on his forehead.
After nine months of growth, surgeons say that the the nose is in good shape and the transplant will be performed soon.
Damian Grammaticas reports.

MAVEN NASA's Mission to Mars

 

 

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission began with a smooth countdown and flawless launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the 5,400-pound spacecraft lifted off at 1:28 p.m. EST, the mission's first opportunity. MAVEN's solar arrays deployed and are producing power.
"We're currently about 14,000 miles away from Earth and heading out to the Red Planet right now," said MAVEN Project Manager David Mitchell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Protoplanetary disk

A Baby Star surrounded by Protoplanetary Disc

A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may be considered an accretion disc because gaseous material may be falling from the inner edge of the disk onto the surface of the star, but this process should not be confused with the accretion process thought to build up the planets themselves. Externally illuminated photo-evaporating protoplanetary disks are called proplyds.

Formation and evolution of the Solar System

Artist's conception of a protoplanetary disk

The formation of the Solar System is estimated to have begun 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed.