Science & TechnologyS


Sun

The Sun could be heading into period of extended calm

Researchers in the US may have discovered further evidence that the Sun is heading towards an extended period of quiet activity, the like of which has not been seen since the 17th century. The impact this may have on climate is poorly understood but it would be good news for satellite communications, which would continue to avoid the harsher impacts of space weather.

Scientists have long known that the Sun's magnetic activity varies over a cycle of approximately 11 years. Greater magnetic activity leads to more "sunspots", or darker patches visible on the solar surface. These sunspots are regions where the magnetic field lines have become twisted due to differential rotation in the outer layers of the Sun.
Image
© Physics WorldSolar hosepipe Sun continues to spray Earth even during the "quiet times"

Control Panel

Oil Industry Sets a Brisk Pace of New Discoveries

Oil rig
© Ken Childress/TransoceanAn off-shore oil rig, shown here off Brest, France, and now under contract to BP off the coast of Angola. More than 200 oil discoveries have been reported so far in 2009 in dozens of countries.
The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy.

These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths and break tougher rocks.

"That's the wonderful thing about price signals in a free market - it puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk," said James T. Hackett, chairman and chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum.

More than 200 discoveries have been reported so far this year in dozens of countries, including northern Iraq's Kurdish region, Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, Norway, Ghana and Russia. They have been made by international giants, like Exxon Mobil, but also by industry minnows, like Tullow Oil.

Just this month, BP said that it found a giant deepwater field that might turn out to be the biggest oil discovery ever in the Gulf of Mexico, while Anadarko announced a large find in an "exciting and highly prospective" region off Sierra Leone.

Sherlock

Archaeologists Find Suspected Trojan War-Era Couple

Couple
© Reuters/Project TroyAn undated handout picture shows the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C. in the ancient city of Troy in northwestern Turkey.
Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday.

Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age.

The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than previously thought, changing scholars' perceptions about the city of the "Iliad."

"If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a mote. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying," Pernicka told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Sun

New Code Gives Astrophysicists First Full Simulation Of Star's Final Hours

Image
© UnknownUsing Maestro, researchers simulate the radial velocity surfaces of a Type 1a Supernova as it approaches the point of ignition. Only the inner (1000 km)3 are shown in this image.
The precise conditions inside a white dwarf star in the hours leading up to its explosive end as a Type Ia supernova are one of the mysteries confronting astrophysicists studying these massive stellar
explosions. But now, a team of researchers, composed of three applied mathematicians at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and two astrophysicists, has created the first full-star simulation of the hours preceding the largest thermonuclear explosions in the universe.

In a paper to be published in the October issue of Astrophysical Journal, Ann Almgren, John Bell and Andy Nonaka of Berkeley Lab's Computational Research Division, with Mike Zingale of Stony Brook University and Stan Woosley of University of California, Santa Cruz, describe the first-ever three-dimensional, full-star simulations of convection in a white dwarf leading up to ignition of a Type Ia supernova. The project was funded by the DOE Office of Science.

Saturn

Cassini Reveals New Quirks And Shadows During Saturn Equinox

Image
© NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteOf the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth ... none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini.
NASA scientists are marveling over the extent of ruffles and dust clouds revealed in the rings of Saturn during the planet's equinox last month. Scientists once thought the rings were almost completely flat, but new images reveal the heights of some newly discovered bumps in the rings are as high as the Rocky Mountains. NASA released the images Monday.

"It's like putting on 3-D glasses and seeing the third dimension for the first time," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is among the most important events Cassini has shown us."

On Aug. 11, sunlight hit Saturn's rings exactly edge-on, performing a celestial magic trick that made them all but disappear. The spectacle occurs twice during each orbit Saturn makes around the sun, which takes approximately 10,759 Earth days, or about 29.7 Earth years. Earth experiences a similar equinox phenomenon twice a year; the autumnal equinox will occur Sept. 22, when the sun will shine directly over Earth's equator.

Camera

Zooming To The Centre Of The Milky Way - GigaGalaxy Zoom Phase 2

Image
© Stephane GuisardThe second of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project is a new and wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our galactic home, a 34 by 20-degree wide image that provides us with a view as experienced by amateur astronomers around the world.
The second of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project has just been released online. It is a new and wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our home galaxy as seen from ESO's Paranal Observatory with an amateur telescope.

This 34 by 20-degree wide image provides us with a view as experienced by amateur astronomers around the world. However, its incredible beauty and appeal owe much to the quality of the observing site and the skills of Stephane Guisard, the world-renowned astrophotographer, who is also an ESO engineer. This second image directly benefits from the quality of Paranal's sky, one of the best on the planet, where ESO's Very Large Telescope is located.

Info

China finds new section to its Great Wall

Image
© AFP/File/Thomas CoexChinese students visit the Great Wall in Mutianyu. Chinese archaeologists have discovered a new section of the Great Wall, showing that it stretched at least 11 kilometres further east than previously thought.
Beijing - Chinese archaeologists have discovered a new section of the Great Wall, showing that it stretched at least 11 kilometres further east than previously thought, state media said on Tuesday.

The newly discovered section, built during the Qin (221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC to 220 AD) dynasties, was found in northeastern Jilin province, Xinhua news agency said.

Magnify

1,800 Year-Old Marble Figurine Found in Israel

Image
© Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities AuthorityAn 1,800 Year old marble figurine in the image of a bearded man, probably that of a Roman boxer, was discovered.
An ancient and unusual figurine bust made of marble and depicting a miniature image of a bearded man's head has been discovered in Israel. The figurine, believed to be 1,800 years old, was found in an excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the area of the Givati car park in the City of David, in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park.

According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, directors of the site excavation, the high level of finish on the figurine is extraordinary, and it meticulously adheres to the tiniest of details.

Magnify

Archaeologists Find Burial Cellar In Ancient Syrian City Containing Spectacular Artifacts

Image
© Wita/Pfälzner, Universität TübingenExcavation area of the Royal Palace of Qatna.
The archaeological excavations at the royal palace in the ancient city of Qatna, north east of the Syrian city of Homs, have once again unfolded a remarkable archaeological discovery. The summer excavations, due to end September 25, located a rock tomb-cellar underneath the palace containing hundreds of artifacts as well as human bones from the period 1600-1400 BC.

Telescope

New Vista of Milky Way Center Unveiled

Image
© NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al.
A dramatic new vista of the center of the Milky Way galaxy from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory exposes new levels of the complexity and intrigue in the Galactic center. The mosaic of 88 Chandra pointings represents a freeze-frame of the spectacle of stellar evolution, from bright young stars to black holes, in a crowded, hostile environment dominated by a central, supermassive black hole.