Satellite data has confirmed that the March 11 Japanese tsunami caused icebergs to calf off the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
A discovery in Nebraska of rare earth minerals appears set to challenge China’s monopoly.
To me these were the key quotes from this article:
The U.S. used to produce rare earths through the Mountain Pass Mine in California, but it was shut down in 2002, primarily because of environmental concerns, including the spillage of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water carrying radioactive waste into a nearby lake.
and
Although studies have shown the U.S. has 13 million metric tons of rare-earth minerals, National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said it does not mine any of it – partly as a result of the difficulty of obtaining permits. “One of the key problems that investors tell us about is that the permitting regime in this country is so complicated and time-consuming that it has hurt investments here in the United States,” Ms. Raulston said.
Global warming: Half of the Earth’s internal heat comes from radioactive decay.
A thin belt of antimatter particles trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field has been spotted for the first time.
Opportunity is now less than 400 feet from the rim of Endeavour Crater.
After a delay slightly under one hour, the Jupiter probe Juno has lifted off. Check here for updates on its status.
The north pole of Mars in summer: the dry ice is gone, leaving an icecap of water only.
The Dawn mission team released another image today of the giant asteroid Vesta, this time taken from about 2,300 miles away. At this distance the resolution is still somewhat coarse, with the smallest visible detail about 0.43 miles in size.
To the right is a cropped section of the full image, focusing in on what appears to be a very strange geological feature, indicated by the arrows. From what I can tell, the dark meandering streak looks like a rille or flow coming out of the mound or peak near the bottom of the image. Yet, this dark meander continues directly across a crater as if it were a wind-blown dust streak.
I really have no idea what geological process created this. I also suspect that the scientists don’t quite know yet either, though I am sure they have some good theories, mostly based on the very light gravity that should exist on a world only 330 miles in diameter. As I’ve already noted, however, it is going to take them a couple of months to digest the data they are getting and come up with some reasonable conclusions. It will be fun to finally find out what they have learned.
More evidence that there are active flows of water on Mars.
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.
Though there are a number of unsolved issues about these features, the best explanation appears to be a liquid brine.
Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth’s oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.
Go here to see the full image.
A new Rasmussen poll finds that 69% of the public now believe that climate scientists falsified data to support their own theories about global warming. Moreover, these numbers are up ten points since December 2009, which happens to be just after the climategate emails were released.
These terrible numbers are further evidence that the willingness of the scientific community to whitewash their investigations of the climategate scientists, what I consider to be the equivalent of a community-wide cover-up, has done serious harm to science and its reputation.
» Read more
New research on the influence of a large moon to a habitable planet.
Cost issues might force Europe to downsize its 2016 Mars mission.
Did the Earth once have two moons?
Both satellites would have formed from debris that was ejected when a Mars-size protoplanet smacked into Earth late in its formation period. Whereas traditional theory states that the infant Moon rapidly swept up any rivals or gravitationally ejected them into interstellar space, the new theory suggests that one body survived, parked in a gravitationally stable point in the Earth–Moon system.
This new model also posits that the two moons eventually collided, producing the moon we have today.
Oxygen molecules have been detected for the first time in space, and they were found in the Orion nebula, a giant molecular cloud where stars are being born. More here.
The Dawn science team today released what they are calling “the first full-frame image” of Vesta. The image is shown below the fold.
The picture was taken from 3,200 miles, and shows a pockmarked irregularly shaped world. While many features that resemble the Moon (the craters, the rays radiating out from those craters), that Vesta itself is not spherical makes it very much unlike the Moon. It is probably going to take scientists several months at least to decipher the data they are getting and come up with some concrete conclusions about this strange dwarf planet.
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Six of the most ridiculous scientific studies ever commissioned.
The story of Hayabusa, the Japanese space probe that was the first to successfully return material from an asteroid despite serious technical failures, has now inspired three major movies.
Guest post by Phil Berardelli
John H. Marburger III, former science adviser to President George W. Bush and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, died this past week from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was 70.
Just about every news article reporting the death describes Dr. Marburger, a physicist and former head of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, as a controversial figure. This article, for instance, in The New York Times, said the following about Marburger:
In a critical editorial in April 2004, The New York Times, addressing accusations that the Bush administration had distorted or suppressed scientific information that would conflict with its policy preferences, acknowledged the respect Dr. Marburger commanded, calling him “a respected physicist and lifelong Democrat who would not seem an automatic apologist for this administration.” But it added, “The question yet to be answered is whether he is speaking from conviction when he claims that the critics are off base or is serving as a frontman for an administration whose activities in this area are sometimes hard to defend.”
Apparently, because Marburger — a Democrat and one of the longest-serving members of the administration — supported some of the positions espoused by the Bush White House, that made him controversial. But in my 40 years as a journalist and 15 years of covering science, I can’t think of a person I encountered who was more earnest and straightforward.
» Read more
Could this weird lunar crater be the crash site for Lunar Orbiter 2?
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released this picture yesterday of what the Orbiter’s scientists have labeled “The crazy floor of Hellas Basin.” Below you can see a cropped image of only one part of the large higher resolution image. The NASA caption says that the wild colors probably “indicate that diverse minerals are present,” meaning that any settlers of the red planet will probably take a close look at this location with the reasonable hope of finding the resources they need to colonize a planet.
To me, these colors also indicate that this place on Mars would probably one of its most popular tourist spots. As I look at the image my eye instinctively wants to trace out the best trail route along the ridges and down into the gullies in order to give hikers the best view of this colorful terrain.
After almost three years and seven miles of travel, Opportunity is now only about 1500 feet from the rim of Endeavour Crater.
The headline says it all: New NASA data blow gaping hole in global warming alarmism.
Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is “not much”). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.
The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA’s ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted. [emphasis mine]
Astronomers have spotted the first Trojan asteroid to the Earth.
The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth’s orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid’s orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).
The head of the Russian space agency said today that ISS will be deorbited in 2020, as agreed to by the governments running it.
Wanna bet? They are only now starting to do the research the station is best designed for, and learning how to live in space for years is going to take years. Come 2020, that work will hardly be done. Moreover, the impossibility of replacing ISS without a shuttle to haul up large modules and trusses will make very appealing the idea of keeping the present station in operation.
Then again, everything I just wrote is simple common sense, and who ever expected common sense from these governments?
Now why didn’t they think of this before? The ISS partners met today to discuss how to use the space station as a test bed for missions beyond low Earth orbit.
As I wrote in Leaving Earth, a space station is nothing more than a prototype interplanetary spaceship. This kind of research is really its main purpose, and I am glad that the governments running ISS are finally beginning to recognize it, even though their engineers have known it for decades. Note too that the press release above also gives a nice overview of some of the ongoing research on ISS that is directly related to learning how to survive in space for long periods.
The White House has proposed closing 373 government computer data centers. Considering the budget situation, this might make sense. Key quote:
Between 1998 and 2010, the federal government quadrupled the number of its data centers, although, on average, they each have been using only 27% of their computer power.
Juno, the U.S.’s next Jupiter probe, headed to the launchpad on Friday for a planned August 5 launch.
More precise constants in science.
The numbers include reduced uncertainties for several key constants, which physicists say is encouraging because these will allow for better tests of theory. The more precise figures will also aid plans to redefine familiar units of measurement, such as the kelvin and the kilogram, in terms of unchanging fundamental constants rather than relying on a material object that might not be stable (as for the kilogram standard).
