Tag: science

The head of India’s research team at its Antarctica base has been recalled after he ordered the shut down of power at the station.

9:01 am

Welcome to the movies: The head of India’s research team at its Antarctica base has been recalled after he ordered the shut down of power at the station.

From October 7 to 12, ISRO’s satellite ground station at Antarctica, lost all transmission when its power supply was allegedly shut down by the team leader of the 32nd winter expedition to Bharati. The scientist, whose name was not revealed, has since been suspended and brought back to Goa. On October 14, NCAOR had also filed a police complaint against the scientist for the ‘wanton act of shutting down power’, said a statement released by the Ministry of Earth Sciences on Saturday.

This story had this tidbit:

It is believed the probe was ordered after the team leader allegedly ordered for the station’s power supply, which is obtained from diesel generators, to be cut off. A former chairman of ISRO, on the condition of anonymity, said: “If shortage of fuel was the issue, why would the ISRO station not take stock of fuel two months before it was to get exhausted and make arrangements for additional supply from South Africa? It is the most obvious thing to do. Unless there is some confusion or some issues, such a thing in Antarctica is unheard of. If power is switched off, people inside will freeze. So why was the power ordered to be cut off and why wait for diesel to get over?”

It also appears that three people are involved in this story, though details remain scant.

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Here’s another report on the planetary sciences/NASA dispute this week over funding and grant scheduling.

11:08 pm

Here’s another report on the planetary sciences/NASA dispute this week over funding and grant scheduling.

From this report it appears that the complaints by the planetary science community might have been a bit overstated. It doesn’t appear that NASA is cutting the planetary sciences grant program in any significant way.

I suspect that the reason the planetary scientists are so touchy is because they do not trust the Obama administration, based on its previous efforts to eliminate the planetary program entirely. (It is also possible that they are right.)

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No more seasonal hurricane predictions from Colorado State University.

9:49 am

No more seasonal hurricane predictions from Colorado State University.

They lost their funding, which is no surprise.

At the beginning of this year’s season, the team predicted 18 named storms. Nine of those, it said, would become hurricanes. Four would be major hurricanes. Here’s how it shook out: There were 13 named storms. Only two became hurricanes. Neither was a major hurricane.

They, like NOAA, expected an increase in extreme hurricanes and were wrong. In fact, they were so wrong that they illustrated clearly how much a guess all of these climate predictions are. You might as well flip a coin.

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Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

2:11 pm

Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

A sad end to what has been a cometary disappointment. First spotted while it was very far from the Sun, astronomers thus hoped that Comet ISON would blaze brightly when it got closer. Instead, it hardly brightened at all during its journey inward, barely reaching naked eye visibility in the last week. Now it appears to be gone forever.

Scientists will gain some knowledge from this comet, as it was a first time visitor to the inner solar system and thus provides information about the solar system’s beginnings. Nonetheless, for those of us that enjoy watching the beautiful things the heavens give us, this comet will always remain a dud.

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A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

9:10 am

A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

Oncillas are housecat-size felines found throughout much of South America, and are also known as little tiger cats, little spotted cats or tigrinas. But not all oncillas are the same: New research suggests that little tiger cats in northeastern Brazil belong to a different species from those elsewhere on the continent, although they look virtually identical.

Researchers analyzed the genetic material of oncillas in northeastern Brazil, and compared them with nearby populations in the south. They found that there was no flow of genes between the two populations of oncillas, and hasn’t been any for millennia, according to the study, published today (Nov. 27) in the journal Current Biology.

This, along with other genetic differences, led researchers to conclude the two populations do not interbreed and are in fact different species, said study co-author Eduardo Eizirik, a researcher at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

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Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

8:40 am

Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

Three possible fates await Comet ISON, according to Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“It could be tough enough to survive the passage of the sun and be a fairly bright naked-eye object in the early morning sky in the first week of December,” Yeomans said in a statement. “Or, the sun could actually pull it apart. The tidal forces could actually pull this comet apart and so it becomes several chunks rounding the sun and putting on a great show again in early December. Or, if the comet is very weak, it could break up into a cloud of dust and be a complete bust in December.”

So far the comet has been a big disappointment in terms of brightness. However, its flyby today will be interesting as scientists will get a chance to observe one of the largest sun-grazers they’ve ever seen do this.

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Some spectacular oblique images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have been released.

1:06 pm

Some spectacular oblique images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have been released.

The top three images are all oblique. Make sure you click through to the full caption of each image to get more information.

The Lunar Alps image is especially interesting to those who have ever explored the Moon with a telescope from Earth. The rill shown is well known to amateurs, as are the Montes Alpes, or Alps Mountains, adjacent to it. From Earth that rill definitely looks like a meandering river canyon. This LRO image resolves it into a canyon made up of a series of crater-like depressions, a geological feature quite different from the river canyons of Earth.

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New data suggesting the presence of granite on Mars also suggests that the planet is more geologically complex than previously believed.

9:17 am

The uncertainty of science: New data suggesting the presence of granite on Mars also suggests that the planet is more geologically complex than previously believed.

In my years of science writing, I can’t count the number of times I’ve written the phrase “more complex than previously believed.” For some reason, modern scientists seem to always assume that things will be simple, with one straight-forward answer. From gamma ray bursts to supernovae to planetary formation to whatever, the first example found and the first theory developed from that first example has repeatedly been expected to explain everything.

But that’s not how things work. Instead, the closer scientists have looked, the more complex and interesting things have always become. Many different things can cause gamma ray bursts. Supernovae come in many types. Solar systems don’t have to resemble ours. Everything is always more complex than you first believe.

Scientists would get things wrong less often if they simply kept this thought in mind, at all times.

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Comet ISON brightens to just within naked eye visibility.

5:50 pm

Comet ISON brightens to just within naked eye visibility.

“[T]he little but intensely condensed, globular cluster-looking comet was a whopping magnitude 5.4 — two full magnitudes brighter than just 24 hours ago! This makes for a three magnitude total rise since my observation on Monday.” In just 72 hours, Comet ISON increased nearly 16 times in brightness.

Don’t get too excited. Magnitude 5.4 would make it comparable to one of the dimmer stars in the night sky, while the description above indicates it looks less like a comet and more like a blob.

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The number of candidate exoplanets found by Kepler has now risen to 3,500.

11:09 am

Worlds without end: The number of candidate exoplanets found by Kepler has now risen to 3,500.

According to this new analysis, researchers estimate about 70% of stars are host to at least one planet, making planets a common cosmic occurrence. There are now 1,750 candidates that are super-Earth-size or smaller, and 1,788 are Neptune-size or larger. Only 167 of the 3,538 candidates are confirmed to be planets, but Kepler has a good track record: the vast majority of these are probably real.

Two dozen of these candidates are in the habitable zone, ten of which are thought to be close to Earth-sized.

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Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.

9:42 am

Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.

Astronomers viewing our solar system’s asteroid belt with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid’s unusual appearance.

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