Tag: science

Fermilab confirms Japanese particle physics results that could explain lack of antimatter in the universe

6:36 pm

Fermilab has confirmed the Japanese particle physics experiment from two weeks ago suggesting that muon neutrinos can morph into electron neutrinos.

The results of these two experiments could have implications for our understanding of the role that neutrinos may have played in the evolution of the universe. If muon neutrinos transform into electron neutrinos, neutrinos could be the reason that the big bang produced more matter than antimatter, leading to the universe as it exists today

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Cassini directly samples the plumes from Enceladus and finds an ocean-like Spray

5:57 pm

Cassini has directly sampled the plumes from Enceladus and discovered a salty ocean-like spray.

The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 mph (23,000 and 63,000 kilometers per hour), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

The data suggest a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

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Mann and company write more science fiction

10:09 am

Junk science: Michael Mann and associates have just released a paper claiming “The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years–and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.” You can read the paper itself here.

For many, many, many reasons, I agree here with scientist Richard Mueller, who believes in global warming but also believes in good science, “I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t read anymore.”

Nonetheless, I have looked at this new paper by Mann and crew, and find its evidence so weak it ain’t worth the paper it’s written on. To look at the record of a single fossil and claim it is a sufficient proxy for sea level rise is downright laughable.

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The failed predictions of global warming activists

7:48 pm

The failed predictions of global warming activists.

In 2005 “the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations University declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, fleeing the effects of climate change.” Three years later . . . Srgjan Kerim, president of the UN General Assembly, said it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. A UNEP web page showed a map of regions where people were likely to be displaced by the ravages of global warming. It has recently been taken offline but is still visible in a Google cache.

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Hadrian built his country estate with the buildings aligned with the sun

9:18 am

The Roman emperor Hadrian built his country estate with the buildings aligned with the sun.

For centuries, scholars have thought that the more than 30 buildings at Hadrian’s palatial country estate were oriented more or less randomly. But De Franceschini says that during the summer solstice, blades of light pierce two of the villa’s buildings.

In one, the Roccabruna, light from the summer solstice enters through a wedge-shaped slot above the door and illuminates a niche on the opposite side of the interior (see image). And in a temple of the Accademia building, De Franceschini has found that sunlight passes through a series of doors during both the winter and summer solstices.

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An X-ray deep field over six weeks by Chandra finds massive black holes common in early universe

1:29 pm

An X-ray deep field image taken over a six week period by Chandra had found that massive black holes are common in early universe.

These results imply that between 30% and 100% of the distant galaxies contain growing supermassive black holes. Extrapolating these results from the relatively small field of view that was observed to the full sky, there are at least 30 million supermassive black holes in the early Universe. This is a factor of 10,000 larger than the estimated number of quasars in the early Universe.

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The progenitor of the May supernova in M51 identified

10:08 am

supernova 2011dh before it exploded

The progenitor star that produced the May supernovae in the Whirlpool Galaxy (also known as M51) has been identified, and it isn’t what scientists predicted.

In a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website, astronomers describe the star that exploded as a yellow supergiant, not a red supergiant or Wolf-Rayet star, as predicted by the theory explaining this particular type of supernova. Moreover, though theory also favors the star being a member of a binary system, the progenitor of 2011dh appears to be a lone star, not even a member of a cluster.
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Solar scientists predict a major decline in sunspot activity

1:37 pm

At a press conference today at the 2011 meeting of the Solar Physics Division (SPD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, solar scientists predicted that not only will the next solar maximum in 2013 be the weakest in centuries, it is very likely that it will be followed by another long Maunder Minimum, a period of decades without sunspots. “The sun may be going into hiatus,” says Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network. You can read the press releases for this announcement here and here.

decline in magnetic field over the last few cycles

These conclusions are based on three lines of evidence:

  • There has been a long term weakening in the magnetic strength that produces sunspots themselves. The declining trend suggests that by 2022 it will no longer be strong enough to produce sunspots. The graph above shows this decline.
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