Author: Robert Zimmerman

Fermi detects beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth

8:45 pm

More from the AAS meeting: The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected beams of antimatter produced above Earth’s thunderstorms. Key quote:

Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash, a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 such flashes occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected. . . . The spacecraft was located immediately above a thunderstorm for most of the observed terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. But, in four cases, storms were far from Fermi. In addition, lightning-generated radio signals detected by a global monitoring network indicated the only lightning at the time was hundreds or more miles away. During one flash, which occurred on Dec. 14, 2009, Fermi was located over Egypt. But the active storm was in Zambia, some 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) to the south.

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Preliminary findings suggest that the Arkansas birds died from impact trauma

5:51 pm

Preliminary findings from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center suggest that the mass bird die-off that occurred in Arkansas was from impact trauma. Key quote:

The State concluded that such trauma was probably a result of the birds being startled by loud noises on the night of Dec. 31, arousing them and causing them to fly into objects such as houses or trees. Scientists at the USGS NWHC performed necropsies—the animal version of an autopsy—on the birds and found internal hemorrhaging, while the pesticide tests they conducted were negative. Results from further laboratory tests are expected to be completed in 2-3 weeks.

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Kepler’s most recent discovery: A rocky Earthlike planet!

12:40 pm

Bumped. Scroll down for updates!

From the abstract of Geoffrey Marcy’s talk today at 6:30 pm (Eastern) at this week’s meeting in Seattle of the American Astronomical Society:

The NASA Kepler Mission has discovered over 700 candidate planets, with most having diameters less than 5 times that of Earth and some as small as that of Earth. One planet has a radius, mass, and density in a new domain having no counterpart in our Solar System, opening a new chapter in planetary science. [emphasis mine]

A press conference is scheduled for 11 am (Eastern). Stay tuned!

Update I. A NASA press release just made public says that Kepler has discovered a rocky planet only 1.4 times the size of the Earth.

Kepler 10b [is] a rocky planet with a mass 4.6 times that of Earth and with an average density of 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter — similar to that of an iron dumbbell.

The press conference is ongoing, but the Kepler results are still to come.

Update II. The star the planet orbits, Kepler 10, is similar to our Sun in mass and size, but older, about 8 billion years old, and is 560 light years away. Kepler 10 is also a relatively bright star in the Kepler field of view, about 11 magnitude.

The planet’s orbit itself is only 8.4 days long. Its density, 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter, is 8.8 times greater than Earth’s. This data, based on all planet models, also suggests that the planet should be a rocky planet like the Earth, though heavier and larger with a surface gravity twice that of Earth.

Since the planet orbits so close to its sun, it is a scorched world, very hot. The scientists expect that it has no atmosphere. It is also probably tidally locked, with one side always facing its Sun.

Update III: Geoffrey Marcy, one of the world’s premier exoplanet scientists, is now commenting on these Kepler results, saying he considers this discovery “among the most profound discoveries in human history.”

Update IV: In answer to a press question, the scientists speculated that the planet might have formed as a gas giant farther from the star, then migrated inward and had its gas atmosphere stripped away. No one knows yet if this is true however.

Studies of further transits might learn more about the planet, such as the temperatures between its two hemispheres. As the planet orbits the star and its illuminated side comes into view, they can see the change in temperature and thus track it. Right now they think the sunlight side could be as hot as 2500 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you want to watch the press conference for yourself, they will be posting the video here.

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A look at the U.S. government’s planned budget for climate research

1:18 pm

The next time someone begins ranting about how the money from “big oil” is used to attack the science of global warming, tell them to take a look at this post, which outlines in detail the more than $2 billion that the U.S. government plans to spend on climate change research in 2011 alone (too much of which is unfortunately used by partisans like James Hansen to try to prove the Earth is warming).

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The Tucson shootings

12:03 pm

Here are two links that I think are worth reading in connection with the aftermath of yesterday’s tragic shootings in Tucson:

Two sicknesses on display in Arizona.

Disgusting partisanship on display after shooting.

Above all, these murders are horrible and a terrible tragedy. For anyone from either party to try to make political gain from them is beyond despicable.

I should also note that, unlike most Islamic terrorists attacks where either no one in the Muslim community protests while many Muslim leaders express joy or agreement with the violence, I can find no one who is happy about yesterday’s murders. The general response from across the American political spectrum is horror and agony. Such things are wrong and should not happen. It is this distinction that separates Western culture from modern Islam. Until the Islamic community finally stands up to its medieval bullies, I will continue to consider it a threat to civilization and freedom.

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Imaging the ground under the Greenland ice sheet

12:12 pm

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union, scientists describe how they have been able to produce remarkably detailed images of the ground buried almost a mile under the ice sheet of Greenland. These radar techniques are the same used in the past by spacecraft to image the hidden surface of Venus, only far more sophisticated.

The grooves on the surface of Greenland

This image from the paper compares the radar image of the Greenland surface (on the left) to an photograph of a known surface feature in the Northwest Territories of Canada, produced thousands of years ago by the giant icesheets of the last Ice Age. Both are at the same scale, about a third of a mile across, and are looking at the surface at an oblique angle of about 45 degrees. With the radar-produced image on the left, sunlight is simulated as coming from the right, with the elevation increasing as the colors go from green (lowest) to yellow to brown to purple (highest).

The long grooves, generally 30 to 100 feet deep and extending sometimes several miles, are produced as the icesheet slides across the ground. In the radar image, however, these grooves are slowly being ground out now.

It is the resolution of this technique that is so exciting. That they can look through ice almost a mile thick and resolve objects that are only tens of feet across tells me that someday it will be possible for spacecraft to map the smallest features on the surface of Venus or Titan. More exciting, this suggests that the technology will one day exist to even map the unknown surface of gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn, and do it in breathtaking detail.

Yowza!

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Speech codes for the year of 2010 and for January 2011

3:44 pm

Freedom of speech alert! Fire’s speech codes for the year of 2010 and for January 2011. For the yearly “award,” get these rules::

UMass Amherst’s policy on “Rallies” has special regulations applicable to what it calls “controversial rallies”—and it leaves “controversial” wholly undefined, giving the administration unfettered discretion to invoke the policy when it sees fit. If a rally is deemed controversial, it may only take place between noon and 1 p.m. on the Student Union steps, and must be registered at least five days in advance. That’s just one hour a day on one tiny area of a campus of more than 27,000 students! Worse yet, the policy also requires that when holding a controversial rally, “The sponsoring RSO [Registered Student Organization] must designate at least 6 members to act as a security team.” In other words, student groups wishing to publicly express a controversial opinion on campus must give at least five days notice, may only do it on one small area of campus for one hour a day, and must be willing to put themselves in harm’s way by acting as their own security in order to do so.

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the real hijackers of Islam

1:38 pm

More on the tolerance of Islam and that assassination of a Pakistani governor because he opposed Islamic blasphemy laws. Key quote:

Specifically, [Governor] Taseer was supportive of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for “insulting Muhammad.” Bibi had offered some fellow farm laborers some water. They refused to drink it because Christian hands purportedly make water unclean. An argument followed. She defended her faith, which they took as synonymous with attacking theirs. Later, she says, a mob of her accusers raped her.

Naturally, a Pakistani judge sentenced her to hang for blasphemy.

And Governor Taseer, who bravely visited her and sympathized with her plight, had 40 bullets pumped into him by one of his own bodyguards.

As one commenter to my previous post on this story noted, “If they praise murder, what’s next? What kind of religion is this?”

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