Science & Technology

Perseus' Black Hole Sun: Mammoth black hole containing as much mass as 17 billion Suns

Damien Gayle
Daily Mail
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:06 UTC

Astronomers have discovered a mammoth black hole containing as much mass as 17billion Suns. The monster object is more than 11 times wider than the orbit of Neptune, the eighth planet in our Solar System. It lies at the heart of a small lens-shaped galaxy called NGC1277, 220million light years away in the constellation Perseus.

News of the incredible object comes as a separate research team reported the discovery of a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever seen. Observations of the incredible quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe. The black hole at NGC1277 makes up an enormous 14 per cent of the galaxy's mass. Other black holes found at the centres of galaxies only account for around 0.1 per cent.

© PA
News of the incredible object comes as a separate research team reported the discovery of a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever seen.

Observations of the incredible quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe.

The black hole at NGC1277 makes up an enormous 14 per cent of the galaxy's mass. Other black holes found at the centres of galaxies only account for around 0.1 per cent.

The cashless society is almost here - and with some very sinister implications

Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:32 UTC

Cashless money is here, and growing rapidly.

Among the long list of items bundled by consensus reality merchants under the banner of 'conspiracy theory', is a world without cash - where technocrats rule over the populace, and everything and anything is exchanged via plastic and RFID chips.

In this sterile and controlled Orwellian hi-tech society, the idea of cash being passed from hand to hand would be as archaic as the thought of carrying around a rucksack of tally sticks today.

Still, despite the incredible penetration of credit and debit card transactions into economic aggregate, and the boom in internet shopping, few will comfortably admit that a cashless society is nearly upon us. In part, it's a natural denial by many fueled by the idea of our society is indeed on a collision course with the sort of dystopic impersonal future like that depicted in the 1970′s sci-fi film classic, 'Logan's Run'.

Cashless money is here, and growing rapidly.

Over the years, futurists and commentators alike seemed to agree that a cashless society will be a slow creep, and would automatically phase itself in simply by virtue of the sheer volume of electronic transactions that would gradually make cash less available and more costly to redeem, or exchange. This is still true for the most part. What few counted on, however, was how the final push would like place, and why. Some will be surprised by these new emerging mechanisms, and the political and sinister implications they will ultimately lead to.

Comment: The article ends with a wise observation:"The cashless society is already here. The question now is how far will society allow it to penetrate and completely control each and every aspect of their day to day lives."

DNA imaged with electron microscope for the first time

Roland Pease
New Scientist
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:00 UTC

It's the most famous corkscrew in history. Now an electron microscope has captured the famous Watson-Crick double helix in all its glory, by imaging threads of DNA resting on a silicon bed of nails. The technique will let researchers see how proteins, RNA and other biomolecules interact with DNA.

The structure of DNA was originally discovered using X-ray crystallography. This involves X-rays scattering off atoms in crystallised arrays of DNA to form a complex pattern of dots on photographic film. Interpreting the images requires complex mathematics to figure out what crystal structure could give rise to the observed patterns.

The new images are much more obvious, as they are a direct picture of the DNA strands, albeit seen with electrons rather than X-ray photons. The trick used by Enzo di Fabrizio at the University of Genoa, Italy, and his team was to snag DNA threads out of a dilute solution and lay them on a bed of nanoscopic silicon pillars.

The team developed a pattern of pillars that is extremely water-repellent, causing the moisture to evaporate quickly and leave behind strands of DNA stretched out and ready to view. The team also drilled tiny holes in the base of the nanopillar bed, through which they shone beams of electrons to make their high-resolution images. The results reveal the corkscrew thread of the DNA double helix, clearly visible. With this technique, researchers should be able to see how single molecules of DNA interact with other biomolecules.

Saturn storm clouds captured by Cassini

NASA
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:41 UTC

NASA's Cassini orbiter has been sending back incredible images of Saturn and its moons to earth, since 2004. The latest Saturn photos from the spacecraft reveal a dizzying glimpse into a monster storm raging on the ringed planet's north pole.

© REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Roiling storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the center of Saturn's famed north polar hexagon is seen in an image from NASA's Cassini mission taken November 27, 2012. The camera was pointing toward Saturn from approximately 224,618 miles (361,488 kilometers) away.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Saturn's mysterious northern vortex, a vast hexagon-shaped storm, dominates this photo taken Nov. 27, 2012, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image is a raw and unprocessed view.

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has captured dramatic images of rolling storm clouds on Saturn.

The pictures were obtained while the spacecraft was "travelling the Saturnian system in a set of inclined, or tilted, orbits that give mission scientists a vertigo-inducing view of Saturn's polar regions," Nasa said.

The results show storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the centre of Saturn's north polar hexagon.

Comment: From 2011:
Storm as Wide as Earth Rages on Saturn
Monster Storm Rearranges Saturn Before Our Eyes

Organics discovered on Mercury

Irene Klotz
Discovery News
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:20 UTC

NASA dispatched the Curiosity rover to Mars to look for organics, but a probe orbiting Mercury has beaten it to the punch.

New results from the MESSENGER spacecraft not only confirm that the planet closest to the sun has ice inside shaded craters near the north pole, but that a thin layer of very dark organic material seems to be covering a good part of the frozen water.

Both likely arrived via comets or asteroids millions -- or hundreds of millions -- of years ago.

Unlike Curiosity, which will be directly sampling Martian rocks and soils to look for signs of organic material, MESSENGER bounces laser beams and counts neutrons and gamma rays to collect information remotely about chemical elements on Mercury's surface.

The information is correlated with detailed topographical and temperature maps, laboratory tests and computer models and then compared with candidate materials to find the best match for the observed conditions.

After years of painstaking work, scientists believe the most likely explanation is that the warmer parts of the shadowed craters contain black patches of organic material overlaying ice. The material, which is somewhat like tar, coal and soot, is believed to be similar to what has been observed on icy bodies in the outer solar system and in the nuclei of comets.

Comets in ancient cultures

Noah Goldman
University of Maryland
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:49 UTC

Comets have inspired dread, fear, and awe in many different cultures and societies around the world and throughout time. They have been branded with such titles as "the Harbinger of Doom" and "the Menace of the Universe." They have been regarded both as omens of disaster and messengers of the gods. Why is it that comets are some of the most feared and venerated objects in the night sky? Why did so many cultures cringe at the sight of a comet?

When people living in ancient cultures looked up, comets were the most remarkable objects in the night sky. Comets were unlike any other object in the night sky. Whereas most celestial bodies travel across the skies at regular, predictable intervals, so regular that constellations could be mapped and predicted, comets' movements have always seemed very erratic and unpredictable. This led people in many cultures to believe that the gods dictated their motions and were sending them as a message. What were the gods trying to say? Some cultures read the message by the images that they saw upon looking at the comet. For example, to some cultures the tail of the comet gave it the appearance of the head of a woman, with long flowing hair behind her. This sorrowful symbol of mourning was understood to mean the gods that had sent the comet to earth were displeased. Others thought that the elongated comet looked like a fiery sword blazing across the night sky, a traditional sign of war and death. Such a message from the gods could only mean that their wrath would soon be unleashed onto the people of the land. Such ideas struck fear into those who saw comets dart across the sky. The likeness of the comet, though, was not the only thing that inspired fear.

Caves reveal picture of ancient winters

LiveScience
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:25 UTC

© Vasile Ersek, University of Oxford
The Oregon caves where the stalagmite that recorded some 13,000 winters was discovered.

Scientists have found a stalagmite in an Oregon cave that tells the story of thousands of winters in the Pacific Northwest.

"Most other ways of estimating past climate, like tree ring data, only tell us about summers, when plants are growing," Oxford researcher Vasile Ersek said in a statement. But understanding ancient winters is also important for regions like western North America, where chilly conditions are critical for determining water resources.

For their study, Ersek and his colleagues examined a stalagmite that started forming 13,000 years ago in a cavern in what is now Oregon Caves National Monument. During the region's damp winters, water from the ground seeped through the cave's ceiling and trickled onto the floor, with the drips slowly forming the stalagmite over time.

Iran's hydropower production capacity hits 9,500 megawatts

Fars News Agency
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:01 UTC

Iran's hydropower plant capacity reached 9,500 megawatts, the latest energy ministry reports said, adding that the country's hydroelectric power plants have generated more than 9bln Megawatt hours of electricity since the beginning of current Iranian year (started March 20).

The country's hydroelectric power generation showed an eight percent increase from March 20 to November 20 as compared with last year's corresponding period, the Iranian Energy Ministry's website reported.

Earlier this year, Managing Director of the Iranian Water & Power Resources Development Company Mohammad Reza Rezazadeh said the nominal capacity of Iran's hydropower plants "stands at 9.246 MW, adding that the country has generated 6.025 Gigawatt hours of hydropower in the 1st five months of current Iranian year".

He noted that six new hydropower plants would go on stream by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (to end March 20, 2013), and added that two units of Gotvand Dam power plant as well as four units of Siah Bisheh pumping storage plant with a total capacity of 1,500 MW will be put into operation by March 20.

Nine radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8 obtained between October 31 and November 13, 2012

Red Orbit
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:15 UTC

A collage shows nine radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8 that were obtained between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13, 2012, with data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. On Nov. 5 at 8:42 a.m. PST (11:42 a.m. EST/16:42 UTC), the object came about 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers) from Earth, or 17 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

The images of 2007 PA8 reveal possible craters, boulders, an irregular, asymmetric shape, and very slow rotation. The asteroid measures approximately one mile wide (about 1.6 kilometers).

Each panel shows one image per day, and all of them are oriented so rotation is counterclockwise. Each image is shown at the same scale and covers 1.1 miles (1.7 kilometers) from top to bottom. The resolution of the images varies from day to day as the asteroid's distance changed. The images achieve resolutions as fine as 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel on Nov. 5 and 6, when the asteroid was closest. The resolution was 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel on Nov. 2, 3 and 8, and 62 feet (18.75 meters) per pixel on Oct. 31 and Nov. 11 to 13.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech
Nine new radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2012 PA8 were obtained between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13, 2012, with data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif.

Nemesis - The Sun's Evil Twin Brother

History Channel
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:20 UTC

The following episode explores the Nemesis theory, that our sun has a companion star whose passages through the Oort cloud periodically knocks comets into the inner solar system which results in cyclic extinction level events here on Earth.