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| ©George C. Marshall Institute |
| Robert Jastrow |
Science & Technology
Robert Jastrow, who led a major space science institution and helped to bring space down to earth for millions of Americans, died Friday at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 82.
A recently unclassified report from the Pentagon from 1998 has revealed an investigation into using laser beams for a few intriguing potential methods of non-lethal torture. Some of the applications the report investigated include putting voices in people's heads, using lasers to trigger uncontrolled neuron firing, and slowly heating the human body to a point of feverish confusion - all from hundreds of meters away.
The U.S. Navy may make its first attempt to shoot down an errant spy satellite loaded with toxic fuel overnight on Wednesday in an area of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii, according to U.S. officials and government documents.
A notice to mariners broadcast by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency warned of "hazardous operations" in the area between 9:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday and midnight EST on Thursday.
A notice to mariners broadcast by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency warned of "hazardous operations" in the area between 9:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday and midnight EST on Thursday.
NASA has selected a proposal by an MIT-led team to develop plans for an array of radio telescopes on the far side of the moon that would probe the earliest formation of the basic structures of the universe. The agency announced the selection and 18 others related to future observatories on Friday, Feb.15.
A US warship is moving into position to try to shoot down an out-of-control US spy satellite as early as Wednesday before it tumbles into the Earth's atmosphere, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
Armed with two specially modified interceptor missiles, the USS Lake Erie has been tasked to intercept the satellite over the Pacific and shoot it down into the ocean, the officials said, adding that a cruiser, the Aegis, is already in waters off Hawaii.
Armed with two specially modified interceptor missiles, the USS Lake Erie has been tasked to intercept the satellite over the Pacific and shoot it down into the ocean, the officials said, adding that a cruiser, the Aegis, is already in waters off Hawaii.
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| ©AFP/Us Navy-HO/Michael Hight |
| This picture released by the US Navy shows Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Bates operating the radar system control during a ballistic missile defense drill on February 16 aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie. The US warship is moving into position to try to shoot down a defunct US spy satellite as early as Wednesday before it tumbles into the Earth's atmosphere, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. |
Good ideas can have drawbacks. When information is freely shared, good ideas can stunt innovation by distracting others from pursuing even better ideas, according to Indiana University cognitive scientist Robert Goldstone.
"How do you structure your community so you get the best solution out of the group?" Goldstone said. "It turns out not to be effective if different inventors and labs see exactly what everyone else is doing because of the human tendency to glom onto the current 'best' solution."
"How do you structure your community so you get the best solution out of the group?" Goldstone said. "It turns out not to be effective if different inventors and labs see exactly what everyone else is doing because of the human tendency to glom onto the current 'best' solution."
Once considered just your average single asteroid, 2001 SN263 has now been revealed as the first near-Earth triple asteroid ever found. The asteroid -- with three bodies orbiting each other -- was discovered this week by astronomers using the radar telescope at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
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| ©Arecibo Observatory |
| 2001 SN263 has now been revealed as the first near-Earth triple asteroid ever found. - |
[On Tuesday, February 5], lost within the orange glow of the setting sun, a newly discovered asteroid passed within 84,000 miles of our planet, just a third of the distance to the Moon, and barely anyone noticed. A sharp-eyed skywatcher with a good pair of binoculars might have seen the unfamiliar object gliding silently through Aquarius. But did they know what they were seeing was a very unexpected asteroid? Would they have understood just how close it really was?
Near-Earth Object, 2008 CT1, was discovered only two days before [the] close pass by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, an MIT project funded by the USAF and NASA committed to discovering space rocks that orbit near Earth. Using robotic telescopes located at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, the project has contributed nearly 70% of world-wide Near-Earth Asteroid discoveries since beginning operations in 1998.
Near-Earth Object, 2008 CT1, was discovered only two days before [the] close pass by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, an MIT project funded by the USAF and NASA committed to discovering space rocks that orbit near Earth. Using robotic telescopes located at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, the project has contributed nearly 70% of world-wide Near-Earth Asteroid discoveries since beginning operations in 1998.
It hurtled through deep space and seared through the Earth's atmosphere, only to wind up as a child-friendly display.
A 379-pound nickel-iron meteorite made its debut this week at Kidspace Children's Museum, where it now occupies a prime spot in the museum's Boone Nature Exchange area.
The meteorite landed in Argentina and was discovered in 1570. It was donated to the museum by SuSan Nelson and Walter Witkowski.
A 379-pound nickel-iron meteorite made its debut this week at Kidspace Children's Museum, where it now occupies a prime spot in the museum's Boone Nature Exchange area.
The meteorite landed in Argentina and was discovered in 1570. It was donated to the museum by SuSan Nelson and Walter Witkowski.
AN EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE METEORoid storm was detected on the moon by the Apollo seismic network between 20 to 30 June 1975, attaining daily impact rates five to ten times larger than the normal steady rates [1]. The storm has been interpreted as arising from a meteoroid cloud with a diameter of 0.1 astronomical unit and a total mass of [10.sup.13] to [10.sup.14.g.] Duennebier et al. [1] have estimated that a total mass of fragments of about 1.8 X [10.sup.6] g collided with the moon during the event.
Comment: How ironic that Jastrow, skeptic of anthropogenic global warming, headed the very institute that now is a major player in promoting it, with James Hansen as its head. What's even more ironic - and left out in the above obituary - not surprisingly - is that Robert Jastrow was a vocal skeptic of Carl Sagan's attack on Immanuel Velikovsky, author of Worlds in Collision, who, using comparative mythology and ancient literary sources argued that Earth has suffered catastrophic close encounters with other planets in ancient times. Now we know that these contacts were most probably cometary encounters and not planetary. However Jastrow wrote of Velikovsky in Science Digest Sep/Oct 1980: In Sagan's attack on Velikovsky, Robert Anton Wilson writes in "Cosmic Trigger": Of course, Carl Sagan, not to be outdone, replied to Jastrow's letter by calling it 'scientific incompetence'. However, as comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter in July 1994, 29 months before Sagan's death, it was Velikovsky and Jastrow who got the last laugh, if one could laugh at such a cosmic catastrophe clearly threatening our planet.