Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

After one year in orbit around Mercury, Messenger’s scientists have concluded that Mercury is not only dense but odd.

4:35 pm

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.

Leave a comment

Cat purrs prevent heart attacks

7:08 am

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.

2 comments

Private space station builder Bigelow is hiring again.

5:47 pm

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.

One comment

In testimony before Congress today, the Eisenhower family expressed strong opposition to the design of the Dwight Eisenhower monument.

9:44 am

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.”

Leave a comment

The testimony of the fired JPL employee who is claiming religious discrimination continued on Monday.

8:49 am

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.

2 comments

Scientists have found more evidence that the streaks on Martian hillsides that darken in warm weather are caused by melting groundwater flowing downhill.

8:36 am

Liquid water on Mars! Scientists have found more evidence that the streaks on Martian hillsides that darken in warm weather are caused by melting groundwater flowing downhill.

Last summer, the team pointing the HiRISE camera on the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) dropped that bombshell: it had identified 7 confirmed and 12 likely sites that contained hundreds of narrow streaks on steep slopes inside crater walls. During warmer seasons, as temperatures rose as high as 27 degrees Celsius, the streaks darkened, and then faded again. Salts could allow brines to be liquid at these temperatures. Today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, the HiRISE team announced that it now has doubled it stash of streaks, with the identification of 15 confirmed and 23 likely sites, all in the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.

Additional analysis of the spectrographic data also suggests that water could be the cause of the darkening.

Leave a comment

The Met Office in the UK has issued an updated temperature record for the past 150 years, suggesting that the climate has warmed 0.75 degrees Celsius since 1900.

6:02 pm

The Met Office in the UK has issued an updated temperature record for the past 150 years, suggesting that the climate has warmed 0.75 degrees Celsius since 1900.

I remain suspicious of this announcement, as the scientists issuing this report are the same scientists who participated in climategate, including Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University. With that in mind, before I will believe these numbers I will wait for some vetting of this new data by those who have shown themselves to be a bit more skeptical, a bit more open-minded, and a lot more honest.

One more point: to really understand the importance of an increase of 0.75 degrees Celsius over 112 years, we would need some context, something this news article does not give us. For example, how do these numbers compare with the numbers predicted by the various climate models? Also, this is the overall change. How have things changed from year to year? Is there any evidence in this data for a cooling during the past decade, as indicated by other climate measurements?

One comment

Scientists have published the first complete global geological map of the Jupiter moon Io.

11:22 am

Scientists have published the first complete global geological map of the Jupiter moon Io.

The highly detailed, colorful map reveals a number of volcanic features, including: paterae (caldera-like depressions), lava flow fields, tholi (volcanic domes), and plume deposits, in various shapes, sizes and colors, as well as high mountains and large expanses of sulfur- and sulfur dioxide-rich plains. The mapping identified 425 paterae, or individual volcanic centers. One feature you will not see on the geologic map is impact craters. “Io has no impact craters; it is the only object in the Solar System where we have not seen any impact craters, testifying to Io’s very active volcanic resurfacing,” says Williams.

You can download the map here.

Leave a comment

If there is water ice on the Moon, scientists have found that the bombardment from interstellar cosmic rays has likely caused chemical reactions that “can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures.”

9:11 am

Life stranger than science fiction: If there is water ice on the Moon, scientists have found that the bombardment from interstellar cosmic rays has likely caused chemical reactions that “can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures.”

Leave a comment

A business in Missouri has become the first secular and private company to bring a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.

8:42 am

Bring it on! A business in Missouri has become the first secular and private company to bring a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.

Most of the discussion about the Obama administration’s mandate has revolved around whether specific religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, should be exempted from it. To me, that misses the point. In a free society, anyone who objects to this mandate on the basis of personal belief should have the freedom to ignore it. Or to put it another way, the government has no right to order free citizens to buy contraceptives for others.

Leave a comment

The TSA at work

9:19 pm

The TSA at work.

A toddler in a wheelchair is stopped by the TSA at ORD (O’Hare Airport in Chicago) and forced to into a sequestered area. On his way to a family vacation in Disney, this 3 year old boy is in a body cast for a broken leg. Despite assurances from his father that “everything is ok”, he is physically trembling with fear while he watches his two siblings, mother, father, grandfather and grandmother pass through along with everyone else…only to be singled out.

Here’s the video. You decide whether this makes any sense in the real world.

Leave a comment

A private company has proposed salvaging a stranded communications satellite and use it to provide communications to Antarctica.

5:36 pm

A private company has proposed a way to salvage a stranded communications satellite and use it to provide communications to Antarctica.

Now stranded in an elliptical orbit at an inclination of 51 deg., the spacecraft lacks enough fuel to reach its planned geostationary slot at 80 deg. E. Long. But there is enough fuel on board for it to function for as long as 10 years in a new orbit designed to keep it in sight of Antarctica for 14-16 hr./day, according to William Readdy, a co-founder of Polar Broadband Systems Ltd. Set up on the Isle of Man for the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” of salvaging the satellite, Polar Broadband has worked out a way to maneuver Express-AM4 into a 24-hr. elliptical orbit that will remain clear of the crowded geostationary belt for safety.

Leave a comment

The FAA has issued a draft environmental impact statement required before the agency will allow SpaceShipTwo to be launched from the Mohave Air and Space Port.

5:28 pm

Isn’t it nice to live in a free country? The FAA has issued a draft environmental impact statement, required before the agency will allow SpaceShipTwo to be launched from the Mohave Air and Space Port.

If the Wright Brothers had had to jump through the modern bureaucratic hoops required by today’s federal government, they probably wouldn’t have gotten their airplane off the ground until after World War I.

2 comments

Aviation Week looks at the launch challenges facing SpaceX over the next two years.

2:24 pm

Aviation Week looks at the launch challenges facing SpaceX over the next two years.

Though it is very clear SpaceX has a tough schedule of launches coming up, with much of the future of American aerospace riding on their success, this article is strangely hostile to the company. There is no doubt the company has fallen behind schedule, but the list of customers who have been willing to commit to the company is quite impressive, especially considering that SpaceX literally didn’t exist six years ago.

I’ll make several predictions:

  • SpaceX will experience further launch delays.
  • SpaceX will even have one launch failure in the next two years.
  • SpaceX will nonetheless succeed, because its successes will far exceed the failures, and they are clearly offering a better product for less money.
8 comments

Russia has been forced to extend the application period for those who wish to become cosmonauts due to of a lack of response.

2:16 pm

Russia has been forced to extend the application period for those who wish to become cosmonauts due to of a lack of response.

Only 151 applicants responded to this first-ever open astronaut application process in Russia’s history. This contrasts badly with NASA’s recent application call, which received the second highest response ever, 6372 applicants.

4 comments
1 … 780 781 782 783 784 … 925