An asteroid will fly past Earth tonight (March 30) about 2 million miles away. That's about nine times farther away than the Moon.
There is no danger of collision. And that's a really good thing. This space rock, named 2006 VV2, is more than a mile wide (about 2 kilometers), according to the web site Spaceweather.com. If one that big did hit Earth, it'd destroy everything for hundreds of miles around and likely upset global commerce and create climate change unlike anything seen in modern history.
The rock will be far too dim to see with the naked eye. Seasoned backyard astronomers will try to spot it with good-sized telescopes and CCD cameras, however.
Science & Technology
A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built - with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place.
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| AP Photo/Dassault Systemes |
| In this 3D computer image released by French company Dassault Systemes on Friday, March 30, 2007, the theory of French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin of an internal ramp built for the construction of the Great Pyramid is seen. During a 3D screening followed by a press conference at the Paris Geode cinema on Friday, Houdin exposed his revolutionary theory of the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, arguing it was built from the inside. Houdin presented the hypothesis of an internal ramp and the use of a counterweight system. Houdin used 3D technology to have his theory confirmed. |
KONA, Hawaii, -- Teleportation spacecraft
technology will be the subject of a presentation by Ralph Ring at the upcoming Earth Transformation Conference, to be held May 11-13, 2007 in Kona, Hawaii. Mr. Ring will be speaking in only his second public appearance since revealing his participation in a project that successfully developed and tested a teleportation spacecraft in 1960.
technology will be the subject of a presentation by Ralph Ring at the upcoming Earth Transformation Conference, to be held May 11-13, 2007 in Kona, Hawaii. Mr. Ring will be speaking in only his second public appearance since revealing his participation in a project that successfully developed and tested a teleportation spacecraft in 1960.
Roping together observations from the world's largest telescopes as well as the small instrument of a local backyard amateur, astronomers have assembled the most complete picture yet of a pair of asteroids whirling around one another in a perpetual pas de deux.
No, Jupiter hasn't acquired a new toupee and goatee to impress Venus.
Those dashing purple puffs are x-ray images of the gas giant's high-voltage auroras - "northern lights on steroids," said planetary scientist Randy Gladstone of this image released yesterday by NASA.
The colorized picture is something of a collage. Several x-ray images taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory have been combined and superimposed on the latest Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter.
"Jupiter has auroras bigger than our entire planet," said Gladstone, of the independent, nonprofit Southwest Research Institute in Texas, in a statement.
Those dashing purple puffs are x-ray images of the gas giant's high-voltage auroras - "northern lights on steroids," said planetary scientist Randy Gladstone of this image released yesterday by NASA.
The colorized picture is something of a collage. Several x-ray images taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory have been combined and superimposed on the latest Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter.
"Jupiter has auroras bigger than our entire planet," said Gladstone, of the independent, nonprofit Southwest Research Institute in Texas, in a statement.
The double sunset that Luke Skywalker gazed upon in the film "Star Wars" might not be a fantasy.
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed that planetary systems - dusty disks of asteroids, comets and possibly planets - are at least as abundant in twin-star systems as they are in those, like our own, with only one star. Since more than half of all stars are twins, or binaries, the finding suggests the universe is packed with planets that have two suns. Sunsets on some of those worlds would resemble the ones on Luke Skywalker's planet, Tatooine, where two fiery balls dip below the horizon one by one.
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed that planetary systems - dusty disks of asteroids, comets and possibly planets - are at least as abundant in twin-star systems as they are in those, like our own, with only one star. Since more than half of all stars are twins, or binaries, the finding suggests the universe is packed with planets that have two suns. Sunsets on some of those worlds would resemble the ones on Luke Skywalker's planet, Tatooine, where two fiery balls dip below the horizon one by one.
Breaking up might have been hard to do when Neil Sedaka sang about it, but thanks to Sir Tim Berners Lee, it is now as easy for teenagers to break up with each other as it is for them to microwave a junk food sausage.
Yes, the latest thing to do is to break up with your beau on his or her MySpace page. It is a far cry from the heady days we at El Reg can remember, when people would break up with each other by text message. So cosy, so personal. So old hat.
Yes, the latest thing to do is to break up with your beau on his or her MySpace page. It is a far cry from the heady days we at El Reg can remember, when people would break up with each other by text message. So cosy, so personal. So old hat.
A unique collaboration created by Harvard's Initiative for Innovative Computing (IIC) has brought together astronomers, medical imaging specialists, and software engineers to adapt medical imaging software to create 3-D views of astronomical bodies.
"Once this technology is fully developed, we will be able to explore and visualize space in entirely new ways," said Alyssa Goodman, Director of the IIC and a Professor of Astronomy in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Goodman discussed results from the IIC's Astronomical Medicine Project, or AstroMed, last week at the IIC's Inaugural Symposium in Cambridge, Mass.
"Once this technology is fully developed, we will be able to explore and visualize space in entirely new ways," said Alyssa Goodman, Director of the IIC and a Professor of Astronomy in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Goodman discussed results from the IIC's Astronomical Medicine Project, or AstroMed, last week at the IIC's Inaugural Symposium in Cambridge, Mass.
The death of the dinosaurs was not the catalyst for modern mammalian evolution that many people think, a new study shows.
Turns out that sheer intelligence is not enough to become a young math whiz. It also takes a good attention span and training your mind to "self regulate" or focus on the task at hand.
The measure for academic success for decades has been a person's intelligence quotient, or IQ. But new research published in the journal Child Development says that a thought process called "executive functioning," which governs the ability to reason and mentally focus, also plays a critical role in learning, especially when it comes to math skills.
The measure for academic success for decades has been a person's intelligence quotient, or IQ. But new research published in the journal Child Development says that a thought process called "executive functioning," which governs the ability to reason and mentally focus, also plays a critical role in learning, especially when it comes to math skills.
