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Study: Climate change during ice age did not happen at once


Sindh Today
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:44 UTC
Major climatic events during past global ice ages did not occur at once or with the same intensity everywhere, according to new data.

The research by Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's (ANSTO), which used sophisticated nuclear dating techniques on rocks from Mongolian glaciers, could impact future climate change forecasts.

The research shows that Mongolian glacier advances during the last ice age were not synchronised with alpine glaciers in Europe and North America, suggesting that climate varied significantly between continents.
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Telescope

Sparkling Spray Of Stars Seen


Science Daily
Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:36 UTC
Image
© ESOThis colour image of the region known as NGC 2264 — an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the Christmas Tree star cluster — was created from data taken through four different filters (B, V, R and H-alpha) with the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory, 2400 m high in the Atacama Desert of Chile in the foothills of the Andes. The image shows a region of space about 30 light-years across.
NGC 2264 lies about 2600 light-years from Earth in the obscure constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn, not far from the more familiar figure of Orion, the Hunter. The image shows a region of space about 30 light-years across.

William Herschel discovered this fascinating object during his great sky surveys in the late 18th century. He first noticed the bright cluster in January 1784 and the brightest part of the visually more elusive smudge of the glowing gas clouds at Christmas nearly two years later. The cluster is very bright and can easily be seen with binoculars. With a small telescope (whose lenses will turn the view upside down) the stars resemble the glittering lights on a Christmas tree. The dazzling star at the top is even bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye. It is a massive multiple star system that only emerged from the dust and gas a few million years ago.
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Meteor

Edmond Halley's cometary Christmas gift

Chris Anderson
Times News
Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:35 UTC
In addition to celebrating Christmas today, science history buffs might note that today is also the 250th anniversary of a notable return of Halley's Comet in the skies over Germany.

Edmond Halley was a contemporary of Isaac Newton. In addition to his own manifold contributions to science, he convinced Newton to write his seminal book, "Mathematical Principles of Science," and even paid for its publishing.

In Halley's time comets were thought to be one-time phenomena. In 1705, after searching historical records and calculating orbits, Halley published his hypothesis that four comets seen in the previous 250 years were actually the same comet, on an orbit that brought it back to the inner solar system every 76 years. He predicted the comet's return in 1758, but died 16 years too early to see if he had been right.
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Meteor

Watch for Quadrantids meteor shower around Jan 3rd

Joe Rao
Space.com
Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:10 UTC
For meteor observers, the presence of an almost-full Moon cast a bright pall on this month's performance of the Geminid Meteor Shower, normally one of the best meteor displays of the year. But for a wild card, another very good meteor shower may be right around corner. And for this one, the Moon will not play a factor at all.

So, get out your 2009 calendar and put a big circle around Saturday morning, Jan. 3.
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Meteor

Steven Jeffrey Ostro, renowned asteroid radar astronomer, dies at 62


Somerset Reporter
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:08 UTC
Steven Jeffrey Ostro, a senior research NASA scientist who pioneered the field of asteroid radar astronomy, died on December 15 at age 62, following a two and a half year battle with cancer.

Dr. Ostro was a New Jersey native who earned bachelor's degrees in liberal arts and ceramic science from Rutgers University; a master's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University; and a doctorate in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Beginning in 1979 - after a personal invitation from Carl Sagan - Dr. Ostro served as an assistant professor at Cornell University. In 1984, he began creating his life's legacy through his work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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Chalkboard

Mapping Celestial Terrains, in All Their 3-D Glory

Guy Gugliotta
The New York Times
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:57 UTC
3D stars
© Robert W. GaskellA model of the asteroid Eros constructed from images from the NEAR spacecraft and, at far left, the beginnings of a topographic map of Mercury. The Eros model is made from 12,000 overlay “maplets” of the asteroid. Computer software processes the digital images in groups of 1,000.
Altadena, California - When space engineers made a map of a planet or a distant moon back in the old days, they made an 8-by-10 picture of part of the surface, identified a couple of landmarks - a crater and an outcrop, say - and measured the distance between them with a straightedge and a crayon.

"Then you punched the number into the computer and figured out the latitude and longitude," recalled Robert W. Gaskell, a planet-mapping expert. The result was two-dimensional, with only hints of surface texture or complexity.

No more. With modern computers, digital photography and laser range-finding, scientists today do a much better job of pinpointing the locations of their spacecraft, picking landing sites and otherwise describing the solar system's extraterrestrial landscapes.
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Sun

Young Active Star Resembles The Sun When It Was Young


Science Daily
Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:41 UTC
Image
© CNES 2006, by D. Ducros; courtesy of INAF-Italian National Institute for AstrophysicsArtist's illustration of CoRoT satellite.
The CoRoT satellite*, has recently observed a star analogous to the young Sun at an age of approximately 500 million years, named CoRoTExo-2a. This star is accompanied by a giant planet orbiting around it in only 1.7 days, that was discovered by the CoRoT Extrasolar Planet Team.

An investigation on the intrinsic variations of the star has been carried out by another international team, led by astronomers of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) at Catania Astrophysical Observatory with the support of the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

With its very high photometric accuracy and the long duration of continuous observations, CoRoT has been able for the first time to measure the variations of the intensity of the star and follow it for more than 150 days. These unique data show flux variations of about 6 percent, at least 20 times greater than those of the present Sun, with a periodic modulation of 4.5 days. They are produced by spots, analogous to sunspots, but having a correspondingly larger area, that evolve continuously as the star rotates.
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Light Saber

New Type Of Laser Discovered


Science Daily
Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:38 UTC
Image
© Frank WojciechowskiQuantum cascade lasers are small and efficient sources of mid-infrared laser beams, which are leading to new devices for medical diagnostics and environmental sensing.
A Princeton-led team of researchers has discovered an entirely new mechanism for making common electronic materials emit laser beams. The finding could lead to lasers that operate more efficiently and at higher temperatures than existing devices, and find applications in environmental monitoring and medical diagnostics.

"This discovery provides a new insight into the physics of lasers," said Claire Gmachl, who led the study. Gmachl, an electrical engineer, is the director of the Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) center. The phenomenon was discovered in a type of device called quantum cascade laser, in which an electric current flowing through a specially designed material produces a laser beam. Gmachl's group discovered that a quantum cascade laser they had built generated a second beam with very unusual properties, including the need for less electrical power than the conventional beam. "If we can turn off the conventional beam, we will end up with a better laser, which makes more efficient use of electrical power," said Gmachl.
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Meteor

Scotland: 500 million-year-old rocks on Highland beach


News.Scotsman.com
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:53 UTC
Scottish scientists have uncovered clues about a catastrophic event that radically altered the Earth's surface almost 500 million years ago.

Microscopic particles found in rocks on a Highland beach contain tiny remnants of meteorites. Experts at the University of Aberdeen believe the finds within rocks along the shore near Durness, Sutherland, are evidence of a massive collision in the asteroid belt 470 million years ago between Mars and Jupiter which resulted in thousands of meteorites landing on Earth.
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Eye 1

Blind Man Sees With Subconscious Eye

Joe Palca
National Public Radio
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:44 UTC
Scientists are reporting the remarkable case of a blind man who can see.

The case involves a middle-aged male physician living in Switzerland, who is known only by the initials "TN." A few years ago, TN had two strokes, one on either side of his brain. The strokes severely damaged the part of the brain primarily responsible for vision, known as the occipital cortex.

Extensive testing of TN confirmed that even though his eyes were just fine, he was completely blind. He couldn't see objects held in front of him and used a cane to get around. Ask him if he could see, and TN would reply, "No, I'm blind."

But neuroscientist Beatrice de Gelder wanted to study TN further. She is affiliated with Tilburg University in the Netherlands as well as Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. First, she and her colleagues repeated tests on TN to satisfy themselves that he was indeed blind.
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