Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The Sun is spotless again. By this stage in the ramp up to solar maximum, such things should no longer be happening.
More data from Kepler! In a paper [pdf] published today on the astro-ph website, scientists outline Kepler’s census of the variability of stars. Key quote from the abstract:
We have separated the sample in 129,000 dwarfs and 17,000 giants, and further sub-divided, the luminosity classes into temperature bins corresponding approximately to the spectral classes A, F, G, K, and M. G-dwarfs are found to be the most stable with < 20% being variable. The variability fraction increases to 30% for the K dwarfs, 40% for the M and F dwarfs, and 70% for the A-dwarfs. At the precision of Kepler, > 95% of K and G giants are variable.
The detection in June by two different amateur astronomers of an impact on Jupiter bodes well for asteroid/comet research. You can read the actual paper here. [pdf] Key quote from the abstract:
A systematic study of the impact rate and size of these bolides can enable an empirical determination of the flux of meteoroids in Jupiter with implications for the populations of small bodies in the outer Solar System and may allow a better quantification of the threat of impacting bodies to Earth. The serendipitous recording of this optical flash opens a new window in the observation of Jupiter with small telescopes.
Updated and bumped: John’s obituary can now be read here.
John Wilcox, the man most responsible for finding the connection between Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave and the Flint Ridge Cave system and thereby producing the world’s longest cave system, died today after a three week long illness. To quote Roger Brucker, co-author of The Longest Cave, Wilcox “was known for his systematic approach to exploration and laser-like focus on detailed mapping.” R.I.P.
Boeing, which is now building its own private space capsule, and Space Adventures, the company that flies tourists to space, are apparently teaming up. More details will be announced at a press conference is scheduled for next week.
The last journey of the space shuttle Discovery begins.
The mapping of the atmospheres and surfaces of some extrasolar planets, even at distances of many light years, is now possible.
Set to launch before year’s end, construction of China’s next lunar probe, Chang’e 2, appears to be on schedule, at least according to Chinese news sources.
The space war continues. Mike Griffin gave a speech today where he once again attacked the Obama administration’s proposals for NASA.
A new climate theory: The Pakistani floods and Russian heatwave this summer might explain why the hurricane season going on right now in the North Atlantic started off so slow.
Back to the drawing board! Though the theories say it can’t happen that fast, scientists have found evidence that 16 million years ago the Earth’s magnetic field flipped polarity in less than five years. Even more depressing for the theorists is that this is the second such fast flip researchers have discovered.
Freedom of speech alert: Despite having gotten permission to be there, campus officials ejected students and members of the Young American’s for Freedom from the Palm Beach State College campus during club rush, apparantly because the officials disagreed with the students’ literature. Key quote:
On the day of club rush, officials approached the group and after seeing information about the organization and its ideals criticizing Barack Obama’s economic policy, Ms. Ford-Morris was visibly disturbed by the material presented, published by the Heritage Foundation, criticizing President Obama’s administration. College officials then called the campus police to assure the group left campus. Ms. Ford-Morris denied having ever talked to Ms. Beattie about giving permission to the organization to be a part of PBSC club rush.
Update: The name for Young American’s for Freedom has been corrected. Thank you, readers!
Deep Impact gets its first look at its next target, Comet Hartley 2. The closest approach is set for November 4.
We’re here to help you: The Senate Judiciary Committee, by order of its chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will hold hearings on September 14 to review the regulation of firearms in commerce.
Scientists develop first tractor beam, although it can only move tiny objects less than two yards. Worse, “because this technique needs heated gas to push the particles around, it can’t work in the vacuum of outer space like the tractor beams in Star Trek.”
Launchpad 39B, where 53 shuttle launches took place, is about to be torn down.
Preparations for the next shuttle flight are on hold due to a water main break.
The reason the Danish privately funded suborbital rocket did not launch on Sunday was because the power had accidently been cut off to an ordinary hair dryer, purchased at a Danish supermarket and installed in the rocket to keep the valve from freezing.
A Russian astronaut has been twice denied a routine but financially important honor after returning from space, and the Russian astronaut corps might strike over it.
Alex Callage, one of the members of my gun range, has just been chosen by the Air Force to train for the Olympics as a pistol shooter. Go Alex!
The uncertainty of science: The melt rate of the icecaps is half what was previously calculated.
Collision alert! Two small asteroids are going to zip past the Earth this week, both passing closer than the Moon.
New poll news from several normally liberal news sources (Washington Post, NBC, ABC) all show that the voters are really eager to fire Congress in 2010.
A preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website shows further evidence of the decline in the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field over the past ten years. Extrapolated into the future, this data also suggests that the next solar maximum will be the weakest in 200 years, and that the solar maximum after that will have no sunspots at all. You can download the paper here [pdf].
This is not how I would try to boost their morale: Cannibalism survivors of plane crash talk to Chilean miners. Key advice from one of the crash survivors:
“They are much luckier than we were because they didn’t have to make the terrible decision to eat their friends.”
The space war continues: On Friday the chairman of the House committee of Science and Technology responded negatively to the letter by 30 Nobel laureates demanding the House revise its budget authorization for NASA and accept the Obama administration’s plans for the agency. Two key quotes from Gordon’s response:
The hard reality is that the Administration has sent an unexecutable budget request to Congress, and now we have to make tough choise to the nation can have a sustainable and balance [sic] NASA program.
Reluctantly, the Committee came to the conclusion that the president’s new human space flight program, much like the current Constellation program, was unexecutable under the current budget projections and other NASA priorities we all agree must be addressed.
The first test launch of that privately funded Danish suborbital rocket had to be scrubbed on Sunday when a valve jammed.
Notre Dame fires employee for attending pro-life rally protesting Obama’s speech at the Catholic university.
That test flight of a Danish privately built suborbital rocket has been delayed from today till tomorrow due to weather, with tomorrow’s flight having a 70% chance.
‘
New research now suggests that it was premature to conclude that Mars has no life, based on the data from the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s. This is vindication for Gilbert Levin, one of the chief scientists for those missions, who had said so then and was subsequently pilloried for it.
