Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Science & Technology
Map

Galaxy

Wallaby and Dingo space surveys expected to find 700,000 new galaxies


Guardian
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 10:14 UTC
Image
© Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images
Early galaxies seen by the Hubble space telescope. Askap, the new radio telescope facility in Western Australia, is predicted to uncover 700,000 more galaxies.
Huge radio telescope in Western Australia will help astronomers find clues to mystery of dark energy and galaxy evolution

Two Australian sky surveys named Wallaby and Dingo are expected to discover 700,000 galaxies over the course of the new year.

A huge new radio telescope facility in Western Australia will scour vast regions of space to provide clues about galaxy evolution.

The £65m Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (Askap) is located in a remote desert region of Western Australia, 196 miles from the port of Geraldton. It consists of 36 dishes, each 12 metres (39ft) wide, which work together as a single antenna.

Askap will also help astronomers investigate one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: dark energy. This is the force which appears to be causing galaxies to fly apart at an accelerating rate. Although no one is sure what dark energy is, it is believed to account for 73% of the universe.

Scientists were able to predict Askap's capabilities by combining its specifications with computer simulations. Dr Alan Duffy, a member of the Askap team from the University of Western Australia, said: "Askap is a highly capable telescope. Its surveys will find more galaxies, further away, and will be able to study them in more detail than any other radio telescope in the world.
      Read More...
Meteor

Approaching comet may outshine the moon

Irene Klotz
Reuters
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:34 UTC
A comet blazing toward Earth could outshine the full moon when it passes by at the end of next year - if it survives its close encounter with the sun.

The recently discovered object, known as comet ISON, is due to fly within 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) from the center of the sun on November 28, 2013 said astronomer Donald Yeomans, head of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Image
As the comet approaches, heat from the sun will vaporize ices in its body, creating what could be a spectacular tail that is visible in Earth's night sky without telescopes or even binoculars from about October 2013 through January 2014.

If the comet survives, that is.

Comet ISON could break apart as it nears the sun, or it could fail to produce a tail of ice particles visible from Earth.

Celestial visitors like Comet ISON hail from the Oort Cloud, a cluster of frozen rocks and ices that circle the sun about 50,000 times farther away than Earth's orbit. Every so often, one will be gravitationally bumped out from the cloud and begin a long solo orbit around the sun.
      Read More...
Question

The unknown solar system

Adam
Crowlspace
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:47 UTC
Kuiper Belt
© Don Dixon/cosmographica.com
Just beyond Neptune is the Kuiper Belt, a torus of comet-like objects, which includes a few dwarf-planets like the Pluto-Charon dual-planet system. Despite being lumped together under one monicker, the Belt is composed of several different families of objects, which have quite different orbital properties.

Some are locked in place by the gravity of the big planets, mostly Neptune, while others are destined head in towards the Sun, while some show signs of being scattered into the vastness beyond. Patryk Lykawka is a one researcher who has puzzled over this dark, lonely region, and has tried to model exactly how it has become the way it is today.

Over the last two decades there has been a slow revolution in our understanding of how the Big Planets, the Gas Giants, formed. They almost certainly did not begin life in their present orbits - instead they migrated outwards from a formation region closer to the Sun. To do so millions of planetoids on near-misses with the Gas Giants tugged them gently outwards over millions of years.

We know what happened to the Gas Giants, but what of the planetoids? A fraction today form the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud beyond it (how many Plutos exist out there?) But a mystery remains, which Lykawka convincingly solves in his latest monograph via an additional "Super-Planetoid", a planet between 0.3-0.7 Earth masses, now orbiting somewhere just beyond the Belt.
      Read More...
Igloo

Solar cycle 24 not following sun spot activity predictions


KnowledgeOrb
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 14:35 UTC
Sunspot Cycles
© NOAA/SWPC Boulder, CO USA
Cycle 24 Sun Spot Levels

Every eleven years the sun experiences a peak of sun spot activity, we are nearing this peak period now but activity is low and below predictions. As you can see from the chart above the sun was actually well above average levels for sunspot activity in late 2011, but in 2012 it has been below the predicted levels, as can be seen by the red line.

What does this mean? It could mean that the peak actually came in 2011, a year early. The number of sun spots in 2011 did actually reach the predicted peak in terms of what should have happened in 2012. If this is the case we can look forward to decreasing levels in 2013.

However, it could also mean that this is the quite before the storm and we are in for a significant increase in the number of sunspots from the low level we have seen in 2012. The sun may actually make ofs for the low levels of activity we have been experiencing and over achieve to return is to the predicted numbers. If this happens 2013 will be abuzz with solar activity. Only time will tell but it looks like 2012 will end with a whimper as far as solar activity goes.
      Read More...
Wolf

Dr. Melba Ketchum on the background to her Bigfoot DNA research


Coast to Coast AM
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:54 UTC
Joining George Knapp, Dr. Melba S. Ketchum discusses her DNA analysis of possible Bigfoot hair samples.

Biography:

Dr. Melba S. Ketchum grew up in Texas City, Texas. She attended Texas A&M University where she received her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine after five years at the university. She had a mixed veterinary practice until she founded DNA Diagnostics. Dr. Ketchum is the president and founder of DNA Diagnostics, Inc. d/b/a Shelterwood Laboratories. Established in 1985, DNA Diagnostics has become a leader in all types of DNA testing including: human and animal forensics, human and animal paternity and parentage testing, disease diagnostics, trait tests, animal and human identity testing, species identification and sex determination. Most common species of animals are tested at DNA Diagnostics.

      Read More...
Blue Planet

Earth's twin will be discovered in 2013, astronomers predict

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:35 UTC
Image
Humanity is likely to discover its first truly Earth-like planet in 2013, according to the director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.

"I'm very positive that the first Earth twin will be discovered next year," Abel Mendez told Space.com.

Mendez is leading the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog project, which seeks to identify potentially habitable planets outside our solar system. Astronomers have already found a number of potentially habitable planets, based on chemical and physical characteristics that are theoretically conducive to life. Earlier this month, Mendez said seven potentially habitable planets have been found - Gliese 581d, HD 85512b, Kepler 22b, Gliese 667Cc, Gliese 581g, Gliese 163c, and HD 40307g.
      Read More...
Comet 2

Quadrantids, one of the best but least-known meteor showers, will shine in January 3

Michael E. Bakich
Astronomy.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 11:04 UTC
The annual Quadrantid meteor shower usually is one of the year's best, and in 2013, it will once again provide a nice display. Throughout the Western Hemisphere, the shower reaches its peak before dawn January 3. Unfortunately, a waning gibbous Moon also is in the sky, and its light will obscure the dimmer streaks. The Quadrantids generate a high percentage of bright meteors, however, so it should still rank among the year's best showers.

Image
© Astronomy: Roen Kelly
A rush of meteors will populate the predawn sky January 3.
      Read More...
Bacon

Mangia! Italian wolves prefer ham to venison

Tim Wall
Discovery News
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:31 UTC
Image
© Retron, Wikimedia Commons
A grey wolf in Europe
Italy is known as a home to fine food. Is it any wonder that even the wolves there are gourmets? Unlike the deer-devouring wolves of northern Europe, the refined palate of the Italian wolf demands pork. Wild boar accounted for two-thirds of the diet of Italian wolves in a study published in Plos One. Roe deer made up most of the other one-third of the wolves' diet.

For the past nine years, biologists have been sampling wolf feces in the Tuscany region of Italy. Wolves had been exterminated in Tuscany, but have recolonized the area.

Even in years of high roe deer population density, the canines consistently ate more ham than venison. They only switched to deer after boar had become scarce. The pork preference in Italy may be because of the smaller size of boars in the Mediterranean. The carnivores largely ignored domesticated animals in the area. The study's authors believe this means wolves could be reintroduced to other areas of Europe without significantly affecting the livestock.
      Read More...
Comet

Electric Comets: The "dirty snowball theory" of quackademia easily debunked

Michael Goodspeed
Thunderbolts.info
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 07:32 UTC
      Read More...
Beaker

DNA of Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza to be examined for 'evil' gene in first study of its kind ever conducted on a mass murderer

Paul Thompson
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 02:46 UTC
  • Adam Lanza
    © Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
    Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza at an unknown location in 2005 - Lanza's DNA is being examined for any evidence that could shed light on his actions that day
    The study will be the first one of its kind and will evaluate any genetic evidence for the mass killing of 20 first graders, six members of staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School and his own mother.
Scientists have been asked to study the DNA of Newtown school killer Adam Lanza to see if has an 'evil' gene that led him to carry out the massacre.

The study, which will look at any abnormalities or mutations in his individual DNA, is believed to be the first of its kind ever carried out on a mass murderer.

Lanza slaughtered 20 children and six adults in one of America's worst ever school shootings on December 14, 2012.

The 20 year old also shot dead his mother Nancy before taking his own life as police closed in on him at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.

The massacre prompted President Obama to look into new gun controls and banning assault rifles such as AR-15 Bushmaster used by Lanza in his rampage.

Comment: It will be very interesting to see the result of this 'study' considering that the Sandy Hook school massacre has the hallmarks of domestic counter-terrorism, in the real meaning of that term: terrorism carried out by the state. Adam Lanza may have had little if anything to do with the event, as suggested by the evidence.

For more information please read:

Sandy Hook massacre: Official story spins out of control

Sandy Hook massacre: Evidence of official foreknowledge?

Connecticut massacre, two shooters? Look to Aurora, Colorado

Who is Adam Lanza?

Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner: School massacre perpetrators used military-style rifles that were rigged to reload quickly; Sandy Hook autopsies "worst I've seen"

Anomalies in the Connecticut school massacre: Second man arrested on scene; "hundreds" of shots reported; Official version of events full of contradictions

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts