Tag: science

Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

9:04 am

Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

Though this Science article outlines well the present “consensus” for Mars’s past climate, it also tries to make it sound like the planetary science community had once believed that Mars was once ocean-covered like the Earth and now has abandoned that consensus. To this I say bunk. Though many respected planetary scientists have looked for and found evidence for a past ocean on Mars, this possibility has always been controversial. From my readings most planetary scientists have always believed that Mars has generally been dry, interspersed with short periods when there is flowing liquid water on its surface. Even the advocates of the Martian ocean never proposed an Earthlike ocean, but a somewhat shallow and short-lived phenomenon.

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Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

1:51 pm

A new consensus: Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

The individuals who signed this letter comprise a who’s-who from NASA’s science and space exploration work over the past fifty years. Their willingness to sign such a letter cannot be dismissed lightly.

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“The bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

12:11 pm

“The [polar] bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic. [emphasis mine]

The study here illustrates again the unreliability of another prediction by scientists advocating global warming. The polar bear population might be under threat, but the evidence so far doesn’t yet support that theory.

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Despite lacking a magnetic field of its own, scientists have discovered magnetic storms surrounding Venus.1

11:45 am

Despite lacking a magnetic field of its own, scientists have discovered magnetic storms occurring in the space surrounding Venus.

The finding, reported today in Science1, suggests that magnetic reconnection may generate auroras on Venus, and could have contributed to the loss of a thick, water-rich atmosphere that scientists believe surrounded the planet during its early history, some 4 billion years ago.

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The Giant Magellan Telescope project has decided it will not participate in a funding competition offered by the National Science Foundation.

8:49 am

The 24.5 meter Giant Magellan Telescope project (GMT) has decided it is not interested in competing for funds offered by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

With just US$1.25 million available to the winner, the NSF competition was less about money and more about prestige. The NSF has been adamant that it has no significant money to support either project until the early part of next decade. But the Thirty Meter Telescope, which will still respond to the NSF’s solicitation, believed that a competition would at least demonstrate the NSF’s intention to eventually support one project — and that the winner would have an easier time attracting international partners.

But the GMT says it can go it alone, at least for now. On 23 March, the group began blasting at its mountaintop site in Chile. And they say they are nearly halfway towards raising the $700 million they need to complete construction.

If the GMT has already raised almost $350 million without NSF support, it makes perfect sense for them to thumb their noses at this piddling funding from the NSF, especially since the bureaucratic cost of getting that money will probably be far more than $1.25 million.

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The world’s largest solar power project, recipient of the second largest ever Department of Energy loan guarantee, has filed for bankruptcy.

8:28 pm

Another wise investment of the Obama administration: The world’s largest solar power project, recipient of the second largest ever Department of Energy loan guarantee, has filed for bankruptcy.

Update and correction: It turns out that the company was offered the DOE loan guarantee, but turned it down. Read this second article. The facts it describe make the decisions of the Obama administration seem beyond foolish.

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Is it snowing microbes on Enceladus?

8:22 pm

Is it snowing microbes on Enceladus?

“More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place,” says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. “Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth’s oceans.”

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