Progress! The University of Colorado and the Goddard Space Flight Center are forming a collaborative research center to study the Sun’s effect on the Earth’s Climate.
A dark Jupiter may haunt the edge of the solar system.
How one astronomer became the unofficial exoplanet record keeper.
The image below from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows gullies remarkably similar to gullies formed on Earth by flowing water, thus providing striking evidence that at some time in the past liquid water did flow on the Martian surface, something that is not possible now. Key quote from the caption:
The gullies shown in the subimage (approximately 710 x 1100 yards) have well developed alcoves, deeply incised channels, and large depositional fans, and are similar to terrestrial landscapes sculpted by surficial water.
The gullies shown in the subimage experienced several periods of activity, as evidenced by older channels cut by younger ones or by their deposits. The current and recent Martian temperatures and atmospheric conditions would not allow for water to be stable at the surface for extended periods of time: it is so cold that the water would freeze, and then it would sublime quickly, because the air is very thin and dry. These gullies could have formed under a different climate, or maybe by repeated bursts of transient fluids. Current leading hypotheses explaining the origin of gullies includes erosion from seepage or eruption of water from a subsurface aquifer, melting of ground ice, or dust-blanketed surface snow.
The hurricane season is about to end, and though it appears that the predictions for this season were just about right, no hurricanes touched down in North America for the second year in a row. Key quote:
“There was only a 2% or 3% chance of getting this many hurricanes and not having one hit the U.S.”
The radiation risks from the TSA scanners.
Japanese scientists have determined that a programming error was the reason why Hayabusa failed to fire its projectile at the asteroid Itokawa in 2005.
Progress! The Met Office of the UK admitted in a report today that global warming has slowed down over the past 10 years.
Link fixed. Sorry!
Saturn moon has a thin oxygen and carbon dioxide atmosphere. Key quote:
“The major implication of this finding at Rhea is that oxygen atmospheres at icy moons, until now only detected at Europa and Ganymede, may in fact be commonplace around those irradiated icy moons throughout the universe with sufficient mass to hold an atmosphere,” said study leader Ben Teolis of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Better stop using that SUV! Global warming will not only destroy the Earth, a food scientist now claims that it will also destroy your Thanksgiving dinner!
Pasty, dry turkey meat along with expensive fruits, vegetables and potatoes could be on the horizon if more variable extremes in regional weather patterns continue as a likely result of climate change, indicates author Neville Gregory.
Jupiter’s south equatorial stripe appears to be reappearing.
Cassini back in operation.
The struggle to find $1.5 billion to save NASA’s astrophysics budget as well as the overbudget James Webb Space Telescope. Note that this article once again allows a variety of NASA managers and scientists push the false story that Webb is a replacement for Hubble. It is not. Hubble looks at the universe mostly in optical wavelengths, as our eyes do. Webb will be an infrared telescope. It will do wonderful things, but different things than Hubble.
The numbering ain’t really that precise, but today scientists announced the discovery of the 500th extrasolar planet.
Scientists are once again debating whether Pluto really is a planet.
A glimpse at the universe before the Big Bang?
Those who visit this website regularly know that I repeatedly post images from the various Mars orbiters and rovers. I do this not only because the images have scientific interest or that they are cool, but because it is simply fun to sightsee, even if it is done by proxy using a robot many millions of miles away. Here are two more images of the sights of Mars.
The first is a mosiac image of a small crater that the rover Opportunity strolled past on November 9 in its four year journey to Endeavour Crater.
What always amazes me about the images that Opportunity has taken as it travels across the Martian desert is how totally lifeless this desert is. You would be very hard-pressed to find any desert on Earth like this. On Earth, life is everywhere, even in deserts with their harsh environment. Moreover, life on Earth has reshaped the surface drastically. Environmentalists like to whine about the havoc humans wreck on nature, but the truth is that all life does this continually. Plants and trees help soften the terrain. Animals (not just humans) mold the surface to their needs.
On Mars, however, all one sees is wind-strewn sand across barren bedrock. What this suggests is that, if there is life on Mars, it is well buried, not very visible, and possibly quite rare. It will thus be difficult to spot.
The second image is another one of those Martian collapse features, where some form of fluid flow under the surface washed out the supporting material. causing the surface to eventually collapse. In this case, however, the collapse left at least one natural bridge. Based on the scale (25 cm = 1 pixel), this bridge is about 80 feet wide and 100 feet long. (To calculate its height requires more mathematical skills than I have.)
Boy, wouldn’t this be a magnificent thing to hike under and across!
It came from another galaxy.
Astronomer and comet/asteroid tracker Brian Marsden has died. Marsden was the kind of gentleman that makes writing astronomy articles so much fun. Even when I was a newby science writer back in the early 90s he was always willing to answer any of my questions, and give me blunt and honest answers to boot. R.I.P.
Some cogent thoughts from James Delingpole about climate politics on the one year anniversary of the release of the climategate emails and the refusal of the elite ruling class to address the issue. Key quote:
And why is this so? In part, at least, it is because of the abject, ongoing failure of our Mainstream Media to report environmental issues with the robust scepticism that ought to be the natural tack of responsible journalists. Too many environmental reporters are still regurgitating press releases handed to them by activist organisations like the WWF, Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth. In the MSM, as in government, it’s like Climategate never happened.
Almost literally, the probe Deep Impact flew through a snowstorm when it flew past Comet Hartley 2 on November 4. Below is one of the best pictures from the moment. More images can be found here. Key quote:
[The images] revealed a cometary snow storm created by carbon dioxide jets spewing out tons of golf-ball to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles from the peanut-shaped comet’s rocky ends. At the same time, a different process was causing water vapor to escape from the comet’s smooth mid-section. This information sheds new light on the nature of comets and even planets.
Note that all the close-up images taken by Deep Impact are going to be slightly out of focus, as the camera was launched with a defect.
The dying stars that look like jellyfish.
For the first time scientists succeed in trapping atoms of anti-matter. Key quote:
The team know the trap worked because they made about 10 million antihydrogen atoms which promptly obliterated themselves. Then they turned off their new trap and saw 38 more obliterations — meaning those 38 antihydrogens stuck in the trap.
Despite the howls of panic over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill this past summer, sea life is flourishing in the gulf. Key quote:
A comprehensive new study says that in some of the most heavily fished areas of the Gulf of Mexico, various forms of sea life, from shrimp to sharks, have seen their populations triple since before the spill. Some species, including shrimp and croaker, did even better. [emphasis mine]
What a difference a year makes! Tomorrow will the one year anniversary of the release of the climategate emails.
Astronomers have identified a dozen new binary star systems, where the two stars are tiny white dwarfs. Of even more interest is that a half dozen are spiraling into each other and will eventually merge, the ensuing collision likely producing a supernova explorsion.
At 10:44 pm (Eastern) tonight a ten foot wide asteroid will zip by the Earth at a distance of only 24,000 miles.
