Space Blogs
EcoAlert: Massive Algae Bloom in Baltic Sea
This satellite image from the European Space Agency captures a 377,000-square-kilometer (145,000-square-mile) algal bloom in the Baltic Sea that could pose a risk to marine life in the Baltic Sea. The blue-green bloom, which stretches from Finland in the north...
Showdown over space policy
NASA / SpaceX
At left, the Ares 1-X rocket stands on its Kennedy Space Center launch pad in advance of its test flight last October. At right, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket stands ready in advance of its test flight in June. The Ares 1-X is 327 feet long from top to bottom, while the Falcon 9's length is only 177 feet.
Rocketeers ranging from SpaceX's millionaire founder to the maverick engineers behind the DIRECT heavy-lift design effort are sounding the charge over Friday's consideration of a space spending bill by the full House of Representatives. Their bottom line: Support the Senate version of the bill instead.
Under Pressure
My latest article for Wired is now online. It’s about baboons, stress vaccines and the often dangerous effects of glucocorticoids. One of the subplots of the article is the severe health consequences of the social hierarchy, which I mostly discuss in the context of the Whitehall Studies:
Genome Surprise: Guinea Pigs Have Ebola!
The ebola virus is one of the nastiest pathogens known to man. It corrodes blood vessels and stops clotting, leaving most of its human victims bleeding to death through their pores. And guinea pigs — along with opossums, wallabies and insect-eating bats — have it in their genes.
A genomic hunt for virus genes traced sequences to Ebola and the closely related Marburg virus in no fewer than six vertebrate species. Echoes of the less-gruesome borna virus family appeared in 13 species, including humans. The genes appear to have been mixed in about 40 million years ago, and have stuck around ever since.
It's a Cold Day for a Telescope Mirror
Discovery News - Space News: NASA is gearing up to launch a pretty big telescope that will search for the universe's furthest galaxies, study the formation of stars, and look for the chemistry of life in other star systems. This is, of course, the James ...
Controlling Soot Might Quickly Reverse a Century of Global Warming
A massive simulation of soot’s climate effects finds that basic pollution controls could put a brake on global warming, erasing in a decade most of the last century’s temperature change.
Compared to the larger, longer term task of getting greenhouse gas pollution under control, limiting soot wouldn’t be hard. Unlike new energy technology and profound changes in lifestyle, the tools — exhaust filters, clean-burning stoves — already exist.
$1.4 million for oil cleanup ideas
Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Workers use absorbent boom to clean oil from a marsh on July 15 near Cocodrie, La. Oil cleanup technologies have lagged behind oil exploration technologies, but the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge could help change that.
Kevin Costner, here's your chance. Sparked by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a well-connected environmental activist is offering $1.4 million for new methods to clean up oil spills.
The Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge is being funded by, you guessed it, Wendy Schmidt. She's president of The Schmidt Family Foundation and helped get the foundation's 11th Hour Project and Climate Central going. She's also co-founder of the Schmidt Marine Science Research Institute - along with her husband, Eric Schmidt, Google's billionaire CEO.
Brown Dwarf Found Orbiting a Young Sun-Like Star
On Orbit: Image: The sun-like star, PZ Tel A and its brown dwarf companion, PZ Tel B. The vast majority of light from PZ Tel A has been removed from this image using specialized image analysis techniques. For size comparison, the size of Neptune's orbit is shown; PZ Tel B is one of few brown dwarfs imaged at a distance closer than 30 Astronomical Units from its parent star. It travels around its star at a closer distance than Uranus revolves around our Sun. (Image provided by Beth Biller and the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign) read more
This Is Worse Than Orson Welles
Position of the planets on August 27, 2010. Click for a larger version
The Mars Hoax is beginning to make the rounds again. It just won’t go away. I’m sure you’ve heard it. Mars is going to be the closest it will ever be (or some such claim) and it is going to be as large as the full Moon on August 27th! I’ve even heard all this was going to take place at 12:30 am “so get your cameras ready” and they were going to be close together, oh what an event.
Lunar triple sunset
Bad Astronomy: I never get tired of the stunning pictures being sent to Earth from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This one is particularly cool: It’s a little weird, isn’t it? What you’re seeing is sunset over some mountains on the Moon, with only the peaks popping up into the sunlight. It might help to pull back a bit: [Click to embiggen.] That’s a little better. You can see the long shadows of the two mountains on the hills farther back, giving the image a bit of context and relief. But you’re still missing the coolest part. Ready? Here’s the entire shot: Whoa! Getting the picture now? Those three mountains are actually the central peaks of the crater Bhabha, a 64 kilometer (40 mile) wide impact scar on the far side of the Moon. With really big impacts, the shock waves bounce around inside the crater bowl, making the rock flow like a fluid. The rock flows outward, then sloshes back inward, splashing up to form peaks. Usually there’s only one, but Bhaba has three.
