All systems go! Dawn did a camera and instrument checkout last week, in preparation for its summertime arrival at the asteroid Vesta.
New Horizons has passed the orbit of Uranus on its way to Pluto.
Two stars fusing into one.
A fire in a Minnesota mine is threatening an underground physics laboratory.
The mess from the NASA space war spreads: Three European space science missions are now on their own after the U.S. the space agency pulls funding.
This ain’t good: Japan has raised the nuclear alert level at its stricken nuclear power plants.
Then again, it appears that the dangers remain limited to a relatively small area, within 20 kilometers of the power plant.
Now for some squealing from planetary scientists: Funding for new unmanned planetary missions under threat.
Note that I agree with Squyres: money spent for planetary research is worth it. However, considering the state of the federal budget, we all have to recognize that nothing is sacrosanct, until that budget gets under control.
After an almost seven year journey, Messenger has successfully entered orbit around Mercury. More here.
The spring rains (of methane) have arrived on Titan.
After years of travel, the probe Messenger finally goes into orbit around Mercury tonight.
The strange link between samurai swords and Japan’s nuclear reactors.
First results from the Hayabusa asteroid samples.
A preliminary analysis of asteroid samples returned last year by Japan’s Hayabusa probe show evidence the dust grains have a similar composition to stony meteorites that commonly fall to Earth. . . . The initial research also shows the samples inspected so far contain no organic molecules. Scientists also say the analysis confirms the rocks at Itokawa were formed 4.6 billion years ago at the dawn of the solar system.
Check out this detailed engineering explanation of what has happened, is happening, and will happen at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. Key quote:
The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down. Because the chain reaction has been stopped a long time ago, there is only very little residual heat being produced now. The large amount of cooling water that has been used is sufficient to take up that heat. Because it is a lot of water, the core does not produce sufficient heat any more to produce any significant pressure. Also, boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid is “liquid control rod”. Whatever decay is still going on, the Boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core.
An evening pause: Part one of a four part documentary about Richard Feynman.
“To know when you know and when you don’t know, and what is it you know, and what is it you don’t know.”
Right on! A protest to reinstate Pluto as a planet.
This ain’t good: A nuclear meltdown appears to have occurred at the quake-damaged Japanese power plant.
The uncertainty of science: a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters has concluded that the the long term random variations of the climate, sometimes lasting as long as three or four decades, are large enough to hide any actual changes to the climate. In the quote from the abstract below, the term “random walk” is jargon for a long term random fluctuation having nothing to do with climate change.
This result indicates that the shorter records may not totally capture the random variability of climate relevant on the time scale of civilizations, for which the random walk length is likely to be about 30 years. For this random walk length, the observed standard deviations of maximum temperature and minimum temperature yield respective expected maximum excursions on land of 1.4 and 2.3°C and over the ocean of 0.5 and 0.7°C, which are substantial fractions of the global warming signal.
In other words, it might simply be too soon to be making predictions about the climate, based upon the presently available data.
The earthquake moved Japan’s coast eight feet while shifting the Earth’s axis about four inches.
NASA has concluded that it will cost an additional $30 million to fix the degradation problem on the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific instruments.
Continue budget problems at NASA: Two climate missions each face a one year schedule slip.
The kapton tape used on the next Mars rover, Curiosity, releases enough methane of its own that it could mess up the rover’s other science.
No, the “supermoon” didn’t cause the Japanese earthquake.
Hawaii and Pacific islands brace for killer tsunami waves to strike across thousands of miles of ocean.
More here about the situation in Japan.
Video:
Putting ISS to use. Key quote:
Under consideration is using the entire station and its six-person crew as an analog for a deep-space human exploration vehicle en route to Mars. An internal team is studying the feasibility and value of such an exercise in the summer of 2012. “We might start with a small window, like a 30-day window, with actual time delays with what we’d expect with a Martian communications system,” Gerstenmaier says. “We may freeze our consumables on station, in the sense of saying that we’ve started our voyage to Mars, and see how well we do in our predictions.”
What the academic community must do to bring tolerance of ideas back to colleges: First, recognize the problem.
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts.
