Author: Robert Zimmerman

Astronomers have concluded that the stars in the Milky Way must average at least one planet per star.

11:28 am

Billions and billions! Astronomers have concluded that the stars in the Milky Way must average at least one planet per star. More importantly, the data says the galaxy should have billions of habitable planets.

[According to astronomer Uffe Gråe Jørgensen], a statistical analysis … shows that out of the Milky Way’s 100 billion stars, there are about 10 billion stars with planets in the habitable zone. This means that there may be billions of habitable planets in the Milky Way.

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New data suggests that the crash of two white dwarf stars caused the nearest supernovae in 25 years

11:03 am

New data has found that the crash of two white dwarf stars not only caused the nearest supernova in 25 years, but appear to be the prime cause for these types of supernovae.

The data also says that there are no white dwarf primary systems in the Milky Way that are candidates to go supernova in this way. Thus, we can all sleep easy tonight!

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The most distant supernova discovered so far.

10:43 am

The most distant supernova discovered so far.

SN Primo is the farthest Type Ia supernova whose distance has been confirmed through spectroscopic observations. The supernova was discovered as part of a three-year Hubble program to survey faraway Type Ia supernovae, enabling searches for this special class of stellar explosion at greater distances than previously possible. The remote supernovae will help astronomers determine whether the exploding stars remain dependable distance markers across vast distances of space in an epoch when the cosmos was only one-third its current age of 13.7 billion years.

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The Supreme Court looks hard at the EPA and doesn’t like what it sees

10:39 pm

The Supreme Court looks hard at the EPA and doesn’t like what it sees.

This case is about the EPA’s ongoing effort to steal property from private landowners.

The Sacketts wanted to build a home on a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in the Idaho panhandle that they bought for $23,000. But after three days of bringing in fill dirt and preparing for construction in 2007, officials from the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the activity stopped and said they suspected the land contained wetlands.

Months later, the agency sent the Sacketts a “compliance order” that said the land must be restored as a wetlands before the couple could apply for a building permit. The government acknowledged Monday that fines for failure to comply with the orders could be as much as $75,000 a day.

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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has renamed the thirty-one year old Very Large Array (VLA) after Karl Jansky, the man who invented radio astronomy.

10:16 pm

A fitting honor: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has renamed the recently upgraded thirty-one year old Very Large Array (VLA) after Karl Jansky, the man who invented radio astronomy.

Karl Guthe Jansky joined Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey in 1928, immediately after receiving his undergraduate degree in physics. He was assigned the task of studying radio waves that interfered with the recently-opened transatlantic radiotelephone service. After designing and building advanced, specialized equipment, he made observations over the entire year of 1932 that allowed him to identify thunderstorms as major sources of radio interference, along with a much weaker, unidentified radio source. Careful study of this “strange hiss-type static” led to the conclusion that the radio waves originated from beyond our Solar System, and indeed came from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

His discovery was reported on the front page of the New York Times on May 5, 1933, and published in professional journals. Jansky thus opened an entirely new “window” on the Universe. Astronomers previously had been confined to observing those wavelengths of light that our eyes can see. “This discovery was like suddenly being able to see green light for the first time when we could only see blue before,” said Lo.

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The New Authoritarianism

9:51 am

The new authoritarianism.

If Obama does win, 2013 could possibly bring something approaching a constitutional crisis. With the House and perhaps the Senate in Republican hands, Obama’s clerisy may be tempted to use the full range of executive power. The logic for running the country from the executive has been laid out already. Republican control of just the House, argues Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., has made America ungovernable. Obama, he said during the fight over the debt limit, needed to bypass the Constitution because, as in 1861, the South (in this case, the Southern Republicans) was “in a state of rebellion” against lawful authority. Beverley Perdue, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, concurred: she wanted to have elections suspended for a stretch. (Perdue’s office later insisted this was a joke, but most jokes aren’t told deadpan or punctuated with “I really hope someone can agree with me on that.” Also: Nobody laughed.)

Read the whole essay. It is a remarkably concise and accurate description of the beliefs and desires of my liberal readers, which was further illustrated by their quick willingness in the comments here, here, and here to excuse an unconstitutional power-grab by Obama. This quote says it all:

Let leaders lead.

Very depressing.

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Phobos-Grunt is now expected to fall to Earth sometime around January 16

9:29 am

It’s official: Phobos-Grunt is now expected to fall to Earth sometime around January 16.

Meanwhile, the head of the Russian space agency is looking for a scapegoat for his country’s recent space failures.

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told the Izvestia daily he could not understand why several launches went awry at precisely the moment the spacecraft were travelling through areas invisible to Russian radar. “It is unclear why our setbacks often occur when the vessels are travelling through what for Russia is the ‘dark’ side of the Earth — in areas where we do not see the craft and do not receive its telemetry readings,” he said. “I do not want to blame anyone, but today there are some very powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft whose use we cannot exclude,” Popovkin told the daily.

With leadership like this, Russia might soon join the U.S. as a country unable to get astronauts into space.

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Homeland Security is monitoring journalists

9:42 pm

Gotta have my KGB: Under an initiative that came out in November, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun monitoring journalists.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.

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The U.S. Agriculture Department announced Monday it will close nearly 260 offices nationwide.

9:24 pm

The U.S. Agriculture Department announced Monday it will close nearly 260 offices nationwide.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the goal was to save $150 million a year in the agency’s $145 billion budget. About $90 million had already been saved by reducing travel and supplies, and the closures were expected to save another $60 million, he said.

Though this is probably a good thing, the article only notes the amount supposingly saved, without showing how it would actually reduce the agency’s budget. Furthermore, I am puzzled why these cuts are necessary, since the USDA’s budget in 2011 still exceeds what it got in 2008. Both facts make me wonder if these cuts are nothing more than smoke-and-mirrors, designed to make us think they are trimming the budget when they actually are not.

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After 16 years in space, NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has been shut down

5:16 pm

After 16 years in space, NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has finally been shut down.

RXTE far exceeded its original science goals and leaves astronomers with a scientific bounty for years to come. Data from the mission have resulted in more than 2,200 papers in refereed journals, 92 doctoral theses, and more than 1,000 rapid notifications alerting astronomers around the globe to new astronomical activity.

“The spacecraft and its instruments had been showing their age, and in the end RXTE had accomplished everything we put it up there to do, and much more,” said Tod Strohmayer, RXTE project scientist at Goddard. The decision to decommission RXTE followed the recommendations of a 2010 review board tasked to evaluate and rank each of NASA’s operating astrophysics missions.

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FAA grants exemption, allowing ultra-light plane to resume whooping crane escort flight

4:52 pm

Gee, isn’t that nice of them: The FAA has granted a one time waiver, allowing an ultra-light plane to resume this year’s whooping crane escort flight.

This infuriates me. What business is it of the FAA whether the ultra-light plane pilots make money on this or not?

This is a perfect example of “mission creep.” The FAA was originally chartered to manage airports, install required landing and navigational equipment, and monitor the designs of aircraft for safety hazards. Somehow, this mission now includes regulating who and what aviation groups are allowed to make money. Disgusting.

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Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.

4:06 pm

Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.

The article focuses on how this could save us from global warming. What I see is a possible tool for making the construction of interplanetary spaceships more practical. On any vessel in space, something has to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide. Finding a cheap way to do this makes building those vessels much easier.

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The Obama administration announced a federal ban Monday on new mining claims affecting a million acres near the Grand Canyon.

1:47 pm

The Obama administration announced a federal ban Monday on new mining claims affecting a million acres near the Grand Canyon.

As much as I love the Grand Canyon and want to protect it, this ban has little to do with the canyon itself. The land involved surrounds the canyon, and is in remote areas that tourists never see. And though the Obama administration claims this is to protect the waters of the Colorado River, none of the mining would take place anywhere near the river.

What this ruling illustrates is the left’s fear of doing anything. They prefer to shut everything down, on the remote chance that something might go wrong, even if that wrong might be very temporary and fixable. Following this philosophy, it is not surprising that the economy has been in the doldrums for the past three years.

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“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

1:40 pm

“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

This statement was made by Mitt Romney yesterday, explaining how it is a good thing to be able to chose the company from which you buy your insurance, or any product, and how it is even a better thing to be able to dump that company if it doesn’t do its job well.

The author of the article above, along probably with much of the press, will try to stain Romney for this statement. To me, it is the best recommendation to hire him as President. With the federal government out of control, in debt, and unable to do anything it promises, it really is time to fire a lot of people. I hope Romney, if he turns out to be the candidate and wins the Presidency, has the courage to do it.

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The national debt now equals the entire U.S. economy

1:29 pm

The day of reckoning looms: The national debt now equals the entire U.S. economy.

The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion. That’s roughly equal to the value of all goods and services the U.S. economy produces in one year: $15.17 trillion as of September, the latest estimate. Private projections show the economy likely grew to about $15.3 trillion by December — a level the debt is likely to surpass this month.

But don’t worry. The press is focused like a laser on more important issues, such as whether the states might someday consider outlawing the pill.

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