Using images from Cassini scientists think they have made their first detection of waves on a lake on Titan
Using images from Cassini scientists think they have made their first detection of waves on a lake on Titan.
Tag: science
Scientists think they have detected active volcanoes on Venus.
Scientists think they have detected active volcanoes on Venus.
We should hear more about this story in the next couple of days, after the scientists give their presentation at a science conference today. Note too that this result would only confirm other data, such as the fluctuating levels of sulfur in Venus’s atmosphere, that have suggested active volcanoes hidden under that planet’s thick cloud cover.
Mercury, the incredible shrinking planet.
Mercury, the incredible shrinking planet.
A dishonest “Cosmos”.
A educated religious scholar looks at one piece from the Tyson television series and discovers that its portrayal of religion is wrong and no better than blatant propaganda.
This morning, I watched the cartoon in question and took some notes. Let’s walk through what it gets right and what it gets wrong.
I’m actually not going to draw from any exotic sources for this post. I’m going to try confine what I include here only to things that can be found on the first page of a Google search for Giordano Bruno. This will illustrate more clearly the rank intellectual dishonesty involved in this segment. The truth of the story was never more than five minutes away from host Neil DeGrasse Tyson and his writers, producers, and animators. They opted to tell half-truths and outright lies instead. [emphasis mine]
I am not surprised. I said that we should expect this. Tyson’s job is to be front man for the modern shibboleths of the leftwing academic society, and this series is going to pound them home, regardless of the facts.
An asteroid will eclipse the bright naked eye star Regulus for 14 seconds on March 19-20, and everyone in the New York City metropolitan area will be able to watch.
An asteroid will eclipse the bright naked eye star Regulus for 14 seconds on March 19-20, and everyone in the New York City metropolitan area will be able to watch.
Late on the night of March 19–20, the faint asteroid Erigone (eh-RIG-uh-nee) will briefly eclipse the bright naked-eye star Regulus for more than 20 million people in the New York metropolitan area and parts of Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, upstate New York, and Ontario. The star will vanish from sight for up to 14 seconds around 2:06 a.m. EDT on the morning of the 20th for New Yorkers, and a minute or two later farther north.
If the sky is clear, Regulus will be a cinch for anyone to spot — no astronomy experience required! Around 2 a.m. or a bit before, go out and face the Moon. Extend your arms straight out to your sides. Regulus will be straight above your right hand, roughly as high as the Moon is. It’s the brightest star in that area.
Scientists are also asking ordinary citizens to help gather data, which if sufficient will allow them to recreate a reasonably accurate silhouette of the asteroid, thus determining its size and shape.
Astronomers have found the largest yellow star yet, 1,300 times bigger than the Sun.
Astronomers have found the largest yellow star yet, 1,300 times bigger than the Sun.
A new report by the largest coalition of biomedical research organizations has found that animal rights extremists have shifted their tactics, increasingly targeting individuals rather then universities in their violent attacks.
The new fascism: A new report by the largest coalition of biomedical research organizations has found that animal rights extremists have shifted their tactics, increasingly targeting individuals rather then universities in their violent attacks.
[The report was designed] to provide guidance to scientists and institutions around the world in dealing with animal rights extremists. That includes individuals and groups that damage laboratories, send threatening e-mails, and even desecrate the graves of researchers’ relatives. In 2004, for example, Animal Liberation Front activists broke into psychology laboratories at the University of Iowa, where they smashed equipment, spray-painted walls, and removed hundreds of animals, causing more than $400,000 in damage. In 2009, extremists set fire to the car of a University of California, Los Angeles, neuroscientist who worked on rats and monkeys. And other researchers say activists have shown up at their homes in the middle of the night, threatening their families and children. [emphasis mine]
To attack the relatives and children of researchers is beyond offensive, and places you on the same level as the typical Islamic terrorist. Such behavior cannot be condoned by anyone, and should be opposed aggressively by all parties, even those who oppose the use of animals in research.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered safe mode on Friday, caused by unexpected switch to a backup computer.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered safe mode on Friday, caused by unexpected switch to a backup computer.
They expect to get the probe back into full operation in a couple of days.
The IAU has issued a press release condemning the public’s naming of Martian craters as initiated by the private company Uwingu.
My heart bleeds: The IAU has issued a press release condemning the public’s naming of Martian craters as initiated by the private company Uwingu.
This war over the right to name features on other planets is mostly a tempest in a teapot, as the actual names will finally be decided by the people who end up living there. Nonetheless, I really like how Uwingu is pushing the IAU’s buttons, as that organization’s self-righteous insistence that it has the power to name everything in space, from craters to the smallest boulders, has for years struck me as pompous and wrong.
The Milky Way’s council of galaxies.
The Milky Way’s council of galaxies.
“All bright galaxies within 20 million light years, including us, are organized in a ‘Local Sheet’ 34-million light years across and only 1.5-million light years thick,” says McCall. “The Milky Way and Andromeda are encircled by twelve large galaxies arranged in a ring about 24-million light years across – this ‘Council of Giants’ stands in gravitational judgment of the Local Group by restricting its range of influence.”
McCall says twelve of the fourteen giants in the Local Sheet, including the Milky Way and Andromeda, are “spiral galaxies” which have highly flattened disks in which stars are forming. The remaining two are more puffy “elliptical galaxies”, whose stellar bulks were laid down long ago. Intriguingly, the two ellipticals sit on opposite sides of the Council. Winds expelled in the earliest phases of their development might have shepherded gas towards the Local Group, thereby helping to build the disks of the Milky Way and Andromeda.
A glory on Venus.
The comet that the European probe Rosetta will visit in August has awakened.
The comet that the European probe Rosetta will visit in August has awakened.
Already 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is approximately 50 percent brighter than in the last images from October 2013. While the comet has moved another 50 million kilometers closer to Earth in this time (and 80 million kilometers closer to the Sun), the increase in brightness cannot be explained by the smaller distance alone. “The new image suggests that 67P is beginning to emit gas and dust at a relatively large distance from the Sun”, says Colin Snodgrass from the MPS. This confirms a study presented by Snodgrass and his colleagues last year in which they had compared the comet’s brightness as recorded during its previous orbits around the Sun. The calculations showed that already in March 2014 its activity would be measurable from Earth.
Update: A preprint paper published today on the astro-ph website predicts that Rosetta will see an unusual topographical feature on the comet’s surface when it arrives in August:
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Secular Light Curve (SLC) of this comet exhibits a photometric anomaly in magnitude that is present in 1982, 1996, 2002 and 2009. Thus it must be real. We interpret this anomaly as a topographic feature on the surface of the nucleus that may be a field of debris, a region made only of dust or an area of solid stones but in any case it is depleted in volatiles. We predict that images taken by spacecraft Rosseta will show a region morphologically different to the rest of the nucleus, at the pole pointing to the Sun near perihelion.