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Pluto Gets 14 New Neighbors


National Geographic
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
Beyond Neptune's orbit, roughly five billion miles from the sun, the solar system can seem like a dark, desolate place.

But like the murky depths of the ocean, the darkness hides millions of mysterious bodies - or at least, so we think.

Known collectively as trans-Neptunian objects, or TNOs, the first of this population to be discovered was Pluto in 1930. Since then we've found a thousand or so objects in Pluto's domain. Some have even been given exotic names, such as Chaos, Ixion, Quaoar, and Rhadamanthus.

TNO's
© NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)A chart of the largest known trans-Neptunian objects as of 2007.
So far, two probes have ventured that deep into the solar system (that'd be Voyager 1 and 2) but neither one paid much heed to TNOs on their way farther afield.

That means astronomers using Earthly telescopes can only guess at how many bodies are out there, what they look like, and what they're made of.
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Telescope

NASA Finds "Cannibal" Star That Ate Its Neighbour

Heidi Blake
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 01:30 UTC
Image
© NASABP Piscium (BP Psc), is a more evolved version of our Sun about 1,000 light years from Earth
A "cannibal" star suspected of eating its neighbour has been found by NASA.

The billion-year-old red giant, called BP Piscium, is thought to have gobbled up a young star whose remnants are still visible.

BP Piscium is a more evolved version of our Sun located 1,000 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. It has been found with the help of NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory.

Scientists begun studying it 15 years ago and were bemused by its unusual appearance.

It is orbited by a disc of dusty matter that usually betokens planets beginning to form around young stars.

But young stars are born in clusters and BP Piscium is isolated, leading astronomers to believe that it is in fact a red giant - a star in a late stage of evolution.
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Adolf Hitler was a "Cowardly Pig," According to Fellow First World War Soldiers

Peter Hutchison
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 06:12 UTC
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© Hulton/Getty ImagesCorporal Adolf Hitler pictured with two other soldiers during his stay in a military hospital.
Adolf Hitler was labeled a "cowardly pig" by fellow First World War soldiers in his regiment, newly discovered archives have disclosed.

Letters and diaries revealed for the first time in a new book portray the future Nazi leader as a loner, a wimp, and an object of ridicule.

The documents published in, Hitler's First War, overturn the commonly held view that he was popular within the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment.

The book dispels the myth that Hitler was at the heart of a close-knit regiment with many veterans going on to form the core of the National Socialist Party.

Dr Thomas Weber, a University of Aberdeen historian, who wrote the book, also discloses that Hitler's role during the Great War was exaggerated by Nazi propaganda.
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Book

Nazi Book Reveals Detailed Plans for Invasion of Britain

Richard Savill
The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:30 UTC
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© NTIPicture of Penzance from Hitler's invasion dossier, which detailed plans for Nazi invasion of Britain
Hilter's detailed plans to conquer Britain have been discovered in a rare Nazi briefing book which reveals how and where German troops hoped to land on the south coast.

The book pinpoints the English coastal towns in the path of the Nazi ground assault, which was only avoided because RAF fighter pilots managed to win air supremacy in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

It also reveals that postcards identifying unmistakable landmarks including Brighton Pier, and Lands End, were given to Nazi troops to identify their targets in preparation for their blitz of the British Isles.

The original copy of the book Militargoegraphiscke Angaben uber England Sudkuste for Operation Sealion detailed every attack point and weakness along England's south coast ahead of the Germans' assault in September 1940.

It included large color maps showing every part of the south coast, from Land's End to Foreness Point in Kent.
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Secret Nazi Mission Saw German U-Boats Land Men on American Soil

Laura Roberts
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:41 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesThe German documentary, called Attack on America? Hitler's 9/11 will be shown on Saturday on the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York
Nazi U-boats dropped saboteurs onto American shores as part of a secret mission during the Second World War, a documentary has claimed.

Eight men landed on beaches off Long Island and Florida with the intention of sabotaging targets across the country over a period of up to two years.

Four men arrived ashore near Manhattan on June 13, 1942 carrying weapons, explosives and primers.

On 17 June 1942 a further four men landed off Ponte Verda Beach in Florida.

The German documentary, called Attack on America - Hitler's 9/11 will be shown on Saturday on the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

The programme-makers, Spiegal TV, claim the men intended to attack economic targets such as Penn Station, hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls and aluminium factories in Illinois and Tennessee.
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Satellite

Flashback Mysterious Force Holds Back NASA Probe in Deep Space

Robert Matthews
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 10 Feb 2002 00:01 UTC
Image
© NASANASA launches Pioneer 10
A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of physics.

Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of nature.

Dr Philip Laing, a member of the research team tracking the craft, said: "We have examined every mechanism and theory we can think of and so far nothing works.

"If the effect is real, it will have a big impact on cosmology and spacecraft navigation," said Dr Laing, of the Aerospace Corporation of California.
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Home of "Ice Giants" Thaws, Shows Pre-Viking Hunts

Alister Doyle
Reuters
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:17 UTC
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© Alister Doyle/ReutersNorwegian archaeologist Elling Utvik Wammer picks up a stick believed to be about 1,500 years old and used by ancestors of the Vikings to hunt reindeer in the Jotunheimen mountains of Norway September 9, 2010.
Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains.

"It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 meters (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway.

Specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the "Ice Giants" of Norse mythology.

As water streams off the Juvfonna ice field, Piloe and two other archaeologists -- working in a science opening up due to climate change -- collect "scare sticks" they reckon were set up 1,500 years ago in rows to drive reindeer toward archers.
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New Chachapoyan archaeological site discovered


...en Peru
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:32 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Called Atumpucro, it has some 150 circular homes and impressive walls. Seated on a hill of the same name, it was found in the province of Luya by photographer and explorer Martín Chumbe.

An archaeological complex full of typical Chachapoyan round builds has been discovered in the district of San Juan de Lopecancha, province de Luya in the Amazonas region. The discovery was made by local explorer and photographer Martín Chumbe in a joint expedition with the district's mayor, owner of the land.
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Bizarro Earth

NIST Finalizes Initial Set of Smart Grid Cyber Security Guidelines

Mark Bello
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued its first Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, which includes high-level security requirements, a framework for assessing risks, an evaluation of privacy issues at personal residences, and additional information for businesses and organizations to use as they craft strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors and other threats.

The product of two formal public reviews and the focus of numerous workshops and teleconferences over the past 17 months, the three-volume set of guidelines is intended to facilitate organization-specific Smart Grid cyber security strategies focused on prevention, detection, response and recovery.

The new report was prepared by the Cyber Security Working Group (CSWG) of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a public-private partnership launched by NIST with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the Department of Energy. The guidelines are the second major output of NIST-coordinated efforts to identify and develop standards needed to convert the nation's aging electric grid into an advanced, digital infrastructure with two-way capabilities for communicating information, controlling equipment and distributing energy.
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Better Earth

Earth Makes Its Own Music

Wil Milan
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:06 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Our planet is a place rich in sound. This panoply of sound is so important to our perception of our world that when the Voyager spacecraft were launched as our ambassadors to the universe, a collection of sounds from Earth were part of what they took with them. Along with images and other information about Earth and humankind, there were recordings (on very old-fashioned analog disks) of the sounds of natural phenomena such as wind, surf, and thunder. There were also animal sounds, music from many cultures, and spoken greetings in several dozen languages, including a clip from then-President Jimmy Carter.
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