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On Monday, Feb. 9th, the full Moon will pass through the outskirts of Earth's shadow, producing a penumbral lunar eclipse. The event should be easily visible to the naked eye as a dusky shading of the northern half of the Moon. A similar eclipse in March 2006 looked like this:
Stefan Seip took the picture from Welzheim, Germany. Note the gray shadow, lower-right, intruding on what should be a uniformly-lit full Moon. This kind of eclipse is not as dramatic as a deep-red total lunar eclipse, but it does have a subtle, almost-surprising beauty which should not be dismissed until you've seen one with your own eyes.
There is growing evidence that life on earth has come from the universe through comets, an eminent British scientist said here.
"Life is cosmically abundant and was brought to the earth by comets and our genes and those of all living forms on earth were brought by comets, neatly-packaged within cosmic microorganisms," professor N Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director, Cardiff Centre for Atrobiology, Cardiff University, said.
The astrobiologist speaking at Nehru Planetarium said, "Our genetic ancestors still lurk amidst the stars, and molecular biology is being deployed to trace connections between different species in search of a Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) for all life on the Earth."
"Life is cosmically abundant and was brought to the earth by comets and our genes and those of all living forms on earth were brought by comets, neatly-packaged within cosmic microorganisms," professor N Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director, Cardiff Centre for Atrobiology, Cardiff University, said.
The astrobiologist speaking at Nehru Planetarium said, "Our genetic ancestors still lurk amidst the stars, and molecular biology is being deployed to trace connections between different species in search of a Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) for all life on the Earth."
So what really caused the dinosaurs to die out?
Part of the mystery and allure of dinosaurs is their (relatively) sudden disappearance from the face of the Earth at the end of the Late Cretaceous epoch, 65m years ago. Many theories have been expounded to explain their sudden departure, with more fanciful ones including a build-up of methane from herbivorous dinosaur farts, mass blindness from cataracts, or an eradication of plantlife due to a global infestation of caterpillars.
It is, however, now widely accepted that the most likely cause of this mass extinction event (which, in fact, not only eradicated dinosaurs but 75% or more of all land-based animal species) is the impact of a huge meteorite that struck Earth around the coast of what is now the Yucatán peninsula in south-east Mexico.
© GuardianSite of the meteorite strike.
It is, however, now widely accepted that the most likely cause of this mass extinction event (which, in fact, not only eradicated dinosaurs but 75% or more of all land-based animal species) is the impact of a huge meteorite that struck Earth around the coast of what is now the Yucatán peninsula in south-east Mexico.
© Robert HolmesImage where PHA 2009 BD81 (left) was discovered. PHA 2008 EV5 is on the right.
An international team of scientists led by the University of Leeds has shed new light on the little-understood motor protein called dynein, thought to be involved in progressive neurological disorders such as motor neurone disease.
Researchers from the University's Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology and from the University of Tokyo have for the first time identified key elements of dynein's structure, and the winch-like mechanism by which it moves.
The research - funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust - is published in the latest issue of Cell.
Researchers from the University's Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology and from the University of Tokyo have for the first time identified key elements of dynein's structure, and the winch-like mechanism by which it moves.
The research - funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust - is published in the latest issue of Cell.
Moscow - Russia's new, digitally-controlled Progress M-01M series spacecraft was "buried" on Sunday at a "spaceship cemetery" in the southern Pacific, Mission Control said.
"The cargo spacecraft's remaining fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean after re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is 11:19 a.m. Moscow time [81:49 GMT]," Mission Control said.
The Progress M-01M cargo spacecraft undocked on Friday from the International Space Station and served as a temporary space lab before its "burial" in the Pacific Ocean.
"The cargo spacecraft's remaining fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean after re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is 11:19 a.m. Moscow time [81:49 GMT]," Mission Control said.
The Progress M-01M cargo spacecraft undocked on Friday from the International Space Station and served as a temporary space lab before its "burial" in the Pacific Ocean.
Houston - Digital X-rays have turned Lucy, perhaps the world's best-known pre-human, inside out, and may answer questions about how our ancestors came down from the trees and walked, scientists said on Friday.
The team at the University of Texas in Austin, in collaboration with the Ethiopian government, completed the first high-resolution computed tomography or CT scan of the human ancestor, who lived 3.2 million years ago.
"These scans we've completed at the University of Texas permit us to look at the internal architecture -- how her bones are built," anthropology professor John Kappelman, who helped lead the work scanning all 80 pieces of the skeleton, told Reuters in an interview.
The team at the University of Texas in Austin, in collaboration with the Ethiopian government, completed the first high-resolution computed tomography or CT scan of the human ancestor, who lived 3.2 million years ago.
"These scans we've completed at the University of Texas permit us to look at the internal architecture -- how her bones are built," anthropology professor John Kappelman, who helped lead the work scanning all 80 pieces of the skeleton, told Reuters in an interview.
© Chris DoyalUnderwater archeologist Mark Holley investigates a circle of stones on the Grand Traverse Bay floor near Traverse City, Mich. Scientists are not sure whether the stones were arranged by humans or natural forces
Forty feet below the surface of Lake Michigan in Grand Traverse Bay, a mysterious pattern of stones can be seen rising from an otherwise sandy half-mile of lake floor.
Likely the stones are a natural feature. But the possibility they are not has piqued the interest of archeologists, native tribes and state officials since underwater archeologist Mark Holley found the site in 2007 during a survey of the lake bottom.
The site recently has become something of an Internet sensation, thanks to a blogger who noticed an archeological paper on the topic and described the stones as "underwater Stonehenge."
© NASA, ESA, Robberto (STScI/ESA), Orion Treasury Project TeamThe level of star-forming activity in the Orion-KL region (marked by the rectangle) in the Orion nebula is comparable to that of the central region of J1148+5251, but confined to a much smaller volume of space.
When galaxies are born, do their stars form everywhere at once, or only within a small core region? Recent measurements of an international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy provide the first concrete evidence that star-forming regions in infant galaxies are indeed small - but also hyperactive, producing stars at astonishingly high rates.
Galaxies, including our own Milky Way, consist of hundreds of billions of stars. How did such gigantic galactic systems come into being? Did a central region with stars first form then with time grow? Or did the stars form at the same time throughout the entire galaxy? An international team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy is now much closer to being able to answer these questions.
© CERNA worker prepares a replacement magnet for the Large Hadron Collider's ring.
After spending a week in the French town of Chamonix thrashing out technical and logistical arguments (and fitting in the odd afternoon of skiing), 120 or so physicists from the CERN laboratory near Geneva have recommended a schedule for the restart of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
They say the 27-km machine will be ready for its first proton collisions at low energies in late 2009, and that it should be operated through the winter until autumn 2010 with a collision energy of 10 TeV to ensure the experiments collect enough data to get some new physics results.
Given that the LHC consumes as much electrical power as all the households in the region around Geneva, that will land CERN with an additional €8 million electricity bill if the recommendations from the Chamonix workshop are accepted by the lab's management on Monday.
