When NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke arrived at the Marshall Space Flight Center and checked his email Sept. 9, 2008, he was very surprised to learn that he'd slept through a dramatic event.
A flurry of shooting stars had lit up the pre-dawn skies, including more than two dozen fireballs brighter than Venus. Cooke's all-sky Sentinel camera recorded the whole thing and had left him an email summarizing the outburst.
"Our Sentinel system consists of a computer-controlled camera, fisheye lens and digital video recorder," Cooke explained. "It was developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario for studies of meteors over Canada, and now we've adapted it for our purposes. Every night, Sentinel patrols the sky, looking for the unexpected, and it never gets sleepy."
Science & Technology
WASHINGTON - Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed experts. All are trillions of miles away - three of them orbiting the same star, and the fourth circling a different star.
© AP Photo/NASA
In this image released by NASA, a dust ring, seen in red, surround the star Fomalhaut, that resides at the center of the image, and not visible to the human eye in this image. The Hubble Telescope discovered the fuzzy image of the planet, known as Fomalhaut b, which is no more that a white speck in the lower right portion of the dust ring that surrounds the star.
In this image released by NASA, a dust ring, seen in red, surround the star Fomalhaut, that resides at the center of the image, and not visible to the human eye in this image. The Hubble Telescope discovered the fuzzy image of the planet, known as Fomalhaut b, which is no more that a white speck in the lower right portion of the dust ring that surrounds the star.
Amsterdam - A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered an important cache of ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.
"It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.
Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.
Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.
"It was golden and had a little horse on it - I had no idea what I had found," he said.
After posting a photo of the coin on a Web forum, he was told it was a rare find. The following day he went back and found another coin.
© AP Photo/ VU/Gemeente Maastricht, HO
A hobbyist with a metal detector has found a cache of ancient Celtic and Germanic coins in a cornfield in the southern city of Maastricht. The city says the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins are dated to the middle of the first century B.C. The hobbyist, Paul Curfs, 47, found several coins this spring and called attention to the find, which eventually led to an archaeological investigation by Amsterdam's Free University.
A hobbyist with a metal detector has found a cache of ancient Celtic and Germanic coins in a cornfield in the southern city of Maastricht. The city says the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins are dated to the middle of the first century B.C. The hobbyist, Paul Curfs, 47, found several coins this spring and called attention to the find, which eventually led to an archaeological investigation by Amsterdam's Free University.
"It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.
Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.
Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.
"It was golden and had a little horse on it - I had no idea what I had found," he said.
After posting a photo of the coin on a Web forum, he was told it was a rare find. The following day he went back and found another coin.
In archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out at the behest of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, in the northwestern part of the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem, a rare and impressive Hebrew seal was discovered that dates to the latter part of the First Temple period. The seal was found in a building that is currently being uncovered, which dates to the seventh century BCE - to the time when the kings Manasseh and Josiah reigned.
The seal will be shown today (Thursday, October 30, 2008) during a study day dealing with "Innovations in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Surroundings", organized by the Jerusalem Region of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
© Israel Antiquities Authority
A rare and impressive Hebrew seal was discovered that dates to the latter part of the First Temple period.
A rare and impressive Hebrew seal was discovered that dates to the latter part of the First Temple period.
Marine microorganisms have been found in amber dating from the middle of the Cretaceous period. The fossils were collected in Charente, in France. This completely unexpected discovery will deepen our understanding of these lost marine species as well as providing precious data about the coastal environment of Western France during the Cretaceous.
This work was carried out by researchers at the Géosciences Rennes laboratory (CNRS/Université de Rennes 1), together with researchers from the Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnement laboratory in Paris (CNRS/Muséum national d'histoire naturelle/Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and the Centre de Géochimie de la Surface in Strasbourg (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg 1). It was published in the 11 November 2008 issue of PNAS.
© Laboratoire géosciences Rennes
Diatom in amber.
Diatom in amber.
This work was carried out by researchers at the Géosciences Rennes laboratory (CNRS/Université de Rennes 1), together with researchers from the Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnement laboratory in Paris (CNRS/Muséum national d'histoire naturelle/Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and the Centre de Géochimie de la Surface in Strasbourg (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg 1). It was published in the 11 November 2008 issue of PNAS.
Saturn has its own unique brand of aurora that lights up the polar cap, unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system. This odd aurora revealed itself to one of the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
"We've never seen an aurora like this elsewhere," said Tom Stallard, a scientist working with Cassini data at the University of Leicester, England. Stallard is lead author of a paper that appears in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Nature. "It's not just a ring of auroras like those we've seen at Jupiter or Earth. This aurora covers an enormous area across the pole. Our current ideas on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright aurora here is a fantastic surprise."
© NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This image of the northern polar region of Saturn shows both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, seen at two different wavelengths of infrared light as captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
This image of the northern polar region of Saturn shows both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, seen at two different wavelengths of infrared light as captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
"We've never seen an aurora like this elsewhere," said Tom Stallard, a scientist working with Cassini data at the University of Leicester, England. Stallard is lead author of a paper that appears in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Nature. "It's not just a ring of auroras like those we've seen at Jupiter or Earth. This aurora covers an enormous area across the pole. Our current ideas on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright aurora here is a fantastic surprise."
What would happen in California was hit by the Big One? New 3-D animations of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake scenario are now available to the public.*
Fourteen animations can be downloaded from the site in high definition format. The 3-D animations show, from the perspective of a several different Southern California locations, how intensely the ground would shake and shift during a very strong 7.8 earthquake with an epicenter on the southern end of the San Andreas Fault.
The science-based earthquake scenario, developed by USGS scientists and partners, is used for both the Great Southern California ShakeOut drill on November 13 and the statewide Golden Guardian 2008 emergency response exercise from November 13 - 18.
© USGS
Still image from a movie showing a view of southern California with the seismic waves radiating outward from the fault as the rupture propagates towards the northwest along the San Andreas fault.
Still image from a movie showing a view of southern California with the seismic waves radiating outward from the fault as the rupture propagates towards the northwest along the San Andreas fault.
Fourteen animations can be downloaded from the site in high definition format. The 3-D animations show, from the perspective of a several different Southern California locations, how intensely the ground would shake and shift during a very strong 7.8 earthquake with an epicenter on the southern end of the San Andreas Fault.
The science-based earthquake scenario, developed by USGS scientists and partners, is used for both the Great Southern California ShakeOut drill on November 13 and the statewide Golden Guardian 2008 emergency response exercise from November 13 - 18.
Brain cells can adopt a new chemical code in response to cues from the outside world, scientists working with tadpoles at the University of California, San Diego report in the journal Nature.
The surface of the largest known 'plutoid' appears to have changed in recent years, according to new measurements of how elements are layered on its icy surface. But astronomers cannot explain the cause of the apparent change.
Eris is the largest known object beyond the orbit of Neptune, weighing nearly a third more than Pluto. It travels on an elongated path around the Sun that takes about 560 years to complete.
Astronomers think the distant world is covered by a layer of frozen methane and small amounts of nitrogen ice. When it comes near the Sun, these ices are thought to vaporise from sunlit portions of the surface and condense onto regions in shadow.
Eris is now near its farthest point from the Sun, so it is expected to be cold and inactive. But a new study suggests the dwarf planet's surface may have changed in the last few years.
"We're really scratching our heads," says author Stephen Tegler of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Eris is the largest known object beyond the orbit of Neptune, weighing nearly a third more than Pluto. It travels on an elongated path around the Sun that takes about 560 years to complete.
Astronomers think the distant world is covered by a layer of frozen methane and small amounts of nitrogen ice. When it comes near the Sun, these ices are thought to vaporise from sunlit portions of the surface and condense onto regions in shadow.
Eris is now near its farthest point from the Sun, so it is expected to be cold and inactive. But a new study suggests the dwarf planet's surface may have changed in the last few years.
"We're really scratching our heads," says author Stephen Tegler of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Supercomputers are used in science and research to perform very complex calculations and simulations that are needed in scientific research. Research often involves modeling climate change and other projects.
The Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer installed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was upgraded recently to increase its performance significantly. The supercomputer is now capable of 1.64 petaflops per second. A petaflop is quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.
The upgrade makes the XT Jaguar the first petaflop system in the world dedicated to open research. One of the first calculations achieved a sustained performance of more than 1.3 petaflops.
The Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer installed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was upgraded recently to increase its performance significantly. The supercomputer is now capable of 1.64 petaflops per second. A petaflop is quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.
The upgrade makes the XT Jaguar the first petaflop system in the world dedicated to open research. One of the first calculations achieved a sustained performance of more than 1.3 petaflops.
