Astronomers think they have identified the star that went supernova last week in the galaxy M95 33 million light years away.
An evening pause: Here’s some more harp, this time played in a way you’ve never heard it by the Celtic Harp Orchestra.
Chicago freedom: “Your first amendment rights can be terminated.” With video.
Only after a Democrat crook wins an election do Democrats suddenly want him gone.
Three days ago, Democrats in Illinois went to bat for Derrick Smith, the state lawmaker who got arrested after taking a bribe from an undercover federal agents. Party officials on Chicago’s West Side even held a rally urging voters to support him in Tuesday’s primary against a former Republican challenging him for the nomination. Democrats succeeded in getting Smith the nomination.
Now, of course, they want him gone.
An astronaut answers hundreds of questions about his flight to ISS on Reddit.
Soap opera: Russia’s deputy prime minister today blasted Vladimir Popovkin, the head the Russian space agency, and one space contractor for the scandals and public backbiting involving both.
The [contractor’s] accusations apparently come as a response to Popovkin’s comments on Monday. The official accused “space industry contractors” of disseminating false rumors about him because they were dissatisfied with his attempt to reform the industry. Popovkin was hospitalized earlier this month because of exhaustion caused by a hectic schedule and frequent jet lags, according to official statements. Some media reported it was due to injuries sustained in a brawl.
Twenty-four First World problems solved.
New close-up photos of the asteroid Vesta from Dawn have discovered numerous bright spots scattered across the face of the asteroid Vesta.
The photos show surprisingly bright spots all over Vesta, with the most predominant ones located inside or around the asteroid’s many craters. The bright areas range from large spots (around several hundred feet across) to simply huge, with some stretching across 10 miles (16 kilometers) of terrain.
The scientists believe the bright spots might be the asteroid’s oldest material, excavated from below by impacts.
A small victory against the EPA: The Supreme Court today ruled unanimously in favor of the landowners whose property was essentially stolen by the EPA because the agency had unilaterally declared it contained a wetland.
A 2010 expedition has now released some spectacular new images of the wreck of the Titanic.
After one year in orbit around Mercury, Messenger’s scientists have concluded that Mercury is not only dense but odd.
The [proposed gravity] model, when combined with topography data and measurements of the planet’s spin, reveals that as much as 85% of Mercury’s radius is taken up by its dense iron core — an upward revision. “We knew Mercury had a large core,” says [Maria Zuber of MIT]. “Now we think it’s even larger.” What’s more, to compensate for a crust that’s enriched in sulphur and depleted in iron, the team has proposed a solid shell of iron sulphide that sits between the core and the mantle. While the shell satisfies the gravity constraints, it also makes it more difficult for a lot of convection to occur in the thin mantle that overrides it — which presents problems for those that invoke convection as a driver of the observed tectonic and volcanic features at the surface. “There isn’t a whole lot of mantle to be doing this lifting up,” says Zuber.
A former NASA scientist was sentenced today to thirteen years in prison for trying to sell classified military satellite information to Israel.
Want to go hiking? You can now hike some of the country’s best trails, from the comfort of your home!
Research has now shown that the purr of a cat appears to prevent heart attacks.
A 10-year study at the University of Minnesota Stroke Center found that cat owners were 40 per cent less likely to have heart attacks than non-cat owners. A cat at home reduced the risk of other heart diseases and stroke by 30 per cent.
But then, all cat owners have always known this.
Hallelujah! NASA is considering doing a simulated 500 day Mars mission on ISS.
The Russians want to do this badly, and have been pressing NASA to go along, with no luck, for more than a decade. That it took that long for NASA to finally realize the need tells us much about the American space agency.
With the help of Google Earth, a lost section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered in the Gobi Desert outside of present-day China.
This bodes well: Private space station builder Bigelow is hiring again.
One interesting tidbit from this article is the description of the company’s negotiations with NASA to attach a Bigelow module to ISS.
The company has been negotiating with NASA for about two years on the potential deal, and that Bigelow has completed various planning and development milestones for NASA. “We’ve been in a series of discussions with NASA over the past two years, with regard to the BEAM project,” Gold told Space News. “They were initiated as part of a proposal in 2010, and we’re hopeful an announcement will be made in the not-too-distant future.”
NASA gave no sign that a deal with Bigelow was imminent. “We do have a no-cost contract with Bigelow to cover early requirements development [for BEAM] but it is not for the flight article,” NASA spokesman Josh Buck said in a March 20 email. “The Agency has not made a decision to go to a flight system yet.” [emphasis mine]
Two years to discuss “planning and development,” and still no decision. My guess is that NASA management doesn’t want to buy a Bigelow module, as it would be relatively cheap and therefore wouldn’t spread much money to NASA centers. They just can’t say no for political reasons.
And if they do want to do it, the slow pace of their decision-making process demonstrates clearly why they shouldn’t be entrusted to build anything in the future.
The official in charge of the FAA’s commercial space office told Congress today that he expects the first space tourism flights to occur within two years.
Sooner I hope.
Will Israel hit Iran’s nuclear facilities with a preemptive strike? One expert outlines why he thinks the possibility is getting more likely.
In testimony before Congress today, the Eisenhower family expressed strong opposition to the design of the Dwight Eisenhower monument.
Although the memorial design was unveiled a year ago, the opposition to it grew louder this winter after grandson David Eisenhower resigned from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, which selected Gehry for the design in March 2010.
The National Civic Art Society, which has set up an alternative website to the memorial group’s website, outlines its opposition in direct terms. It calls the “tapestry” a “rat’s nest of tangled steel, a true maintenance nightmare.”
[Granddaughter Susan] Eisenhower said the tapestry would collect trash and suggested the design concept is part of the “communist world” of art, adding her grandfather likely “wouldn’t understand it.”
The five most spectacular spots on Earth that want to murder you.
New measurements suggest that Venice continues to sink, and is even listing as it goes down.
The scientists throw in sea level rise as a contributing factor, but don’t really have good data to prove that. Moreover, sea level rise cannot account for the tilt.
The testimony continued on Monday of the fired JPL employee who is claiming the science center fired him because of his religious beliefs.
[David Coppedge] trial’s started last week, and on Monday [he] testified that his supervisor Gregory Chin had wrongly accused him, threatened his freedom of religion and created a potentially hostile working environment. “You are pushing your religion in this office and harassing people with this religion,” Chin said, according to Coppedge, who added: “He was angry and he got angrier.”
Coppedge said he asked Chin why he considered intelligent design anything but science. “Dave, intelligent design is religion,” Chin replied, according to Coppedge. Chin warned him against discussing religion or politics with colleagues, he said.
“I felt threatened .. I said: ‘Greg, this gets into issues of free speech and freedom of religion … this could be construed as creating a hostile work environment’,” he added.
Real scientists should never feel threatened by anything Coppedge was saying, and should in fact enjoy debating the issue. Unfortunately, I have learned that such open-mindedness is found with increasing rarity in modern intellectual society, especially when it comes to Judeo-Christian beliefs. This is why I tend to believe Coppedge’s story.
