Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Throw these bums out! The Senate canceled its July 4th break to deal with the debt and literally did nothing.
A paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint website has attempted to model the habitable zones within the Milky Way galaxy. From the abstract:
We predict that ~1.2% of all stars host a planet that may have been capable of supporting complex life at some point in the history of the Galaxy. Of those stars with a habitable planet, ~75% of planets are predicted to be in a tidally locked configuration with their host star. The majority of these planets that may support complex life are found towards the inner Galaxy, distributed within, and significantly above and below, the Galactic midplane.[emphasis mine]
They took into consideration the hazard of supernovae for killing off planetary life, as well as other factors such as the where the necessary heavier elements would be available for producing planets.
You can download the paper here [pdf].
Clark Lindsey has provided a list of websites where you can watch the shuttle launch live from your computer.
Also, Bill Harwood is updating his reports very regularly.
The highest water level in a decade is expected at Lake Powell by August.
Lake Powell’s rising water level is a result of the long and wet winter this year. An above-average snowpack, with late snows and unseasonably cold weather has lead to a slower melt than usual. As of May, the snowpack that feeds Lake Powell was 30 percent higher than average, with only 50 percent of the accumulated snowpack melted. [emphasis mine]
I thought Al Gore told us this wasn’t going to happen anymore.
Doesn’t this make you feel safer? A TSA agent was arrested in Florida earlier this week for stealing from passengers.
Dawn continues to approach the large asteroid Vesta. Below is an image taken July 1st from about 62,000 miles. The image has a resolution of 5.8 miles per pixel.
Despite Vesta’s large size, 330 miles in diameter, it is nonspherical. This fact, combined with data that says it is differentiated with a core and mantle, suggests that it is the remains of a larger object that subsequently broke up.
The transition to private space: Sierra Nevada hires former NASA engineers and astronauts.
More science budget news: The House today proposed cutting NOAA’s $4.59 billion budget by $103 million.
There already is some squealing about this (see the link above), but note that a $4.49 billion budget for NOAA would still be half a billion dollars more than NOAA’s 2008 budget, which is hardly what I’d call a draconian cut.
Another Iceland volcano, Hekla, is showing signs that it is about to erupt.
The volcano, dubbed by Icelanders in the Middle Ages as the “Gateway to Hell,” is one of Iceland’s most active, having erupted some 20 times over the past millennium, most recently on Feb. 26, 2000. It measures 4,891-feet (1,491-meters) and is located about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east of Reykjavik, not far from Eyjafjoell.
Ron Paul (R-Texas) called for the abolition of the TSA yesterday.
More science budget news: The House proposes no budget increase for the National Science Foundation.
The House today proposed cutting NASA’s budget back to 2008 levels while eliminating all funds for the James Webb Space Telescope.
As much as I’d hate to see the Webb telescope die, it has cost far more than planned, is way behind schedule, and carries a gigantic risk of failure. However, if I had a choice, I’d rather they cut the $1.95 billion for Congress’s homemade heavy-lift rocket, the program-formerly-called-Constellation. There is a much better chance that Webb will get completed, launched, and work, than there is for this improvised and impossibly costly Congressionally conceived rocket.
Cassini has captured an image of a truly huge storm on Saturn. Click on the image below to see the full image.
A dozen auto companies have condemned the 15% ethanol gasoline being pushed by Obama and corn-state politicians, saying its use will void their warranties.
LightSquared has raised $265 million in new capital as it awaits FCC approval despite evidence its signal interferes with GPS equipment.
A serious coolant leak has put the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii out of commission.
The wreckage from the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, now adrift in the Pacific, is expected to reach the west coast of the United States by 2013.
The launch of China’s first space station module is now set for September.
New NOAA commercial fishing regulations established last year are destroying small family-owned businesses.
Questions have been raised about the safety of China’s new bridge.
[China Central Television] said that workers were tightening bolts that could easily have been loosened by hand on the bridge, which has seen nearly 18,000 cars cross it every day since it was officially opened on June 30, on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
Why does this remind me of the two shuttle accidents, where managers ignored engineering issues in order to satisfy political concerns?
A reason to avoid US Airways: A woman was thrown off of a US Airways plane for taking a photo of a rude employee.
It is also a reason to fly Southwest, as that airline stepped forward and got the woman and her husband home.
A former NASA official frets about the future lack of scientists to lead small planetary missions.
More information on that Indian temple treasure trove, now estimated worth $22 billion.
Global warming scientists have come up with an explanation for the cooling seen in the past decade: The increase of coal burning in China.
In other words, fossil fuels can cause global warming and global cooling!
Or to put it another way, climate scientists really have no clear understanding yet of the climate, and are merely guessing when they try to predict what’s happening.
Florida divers salvaging a 1622 Spanish wreck, have found more treasure, including an emerald ring worth $500,000.
Going to see the shuttle launch on Friday? The Space Walk of Fame Foundation Museum in Titusville, Florida needs volunteers to help organize the launch viewing at places like Space View Park.
