Omega Universe

Earth Eclipse

2009-02-20T15:30:00.002+02:00

"Japan's Kaguya probe caught this sight of Earth's diamond ring as the planet passed in front of the sun as seen from the lunar orbit. The ring appears incomplete at the bottom, where the night-darkened limb of the moon obscures its view. Credit: JAXA/NHK."

Source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090219-kaguya-earth-eclipse.html

Strongest GRB detected yet

2009-02-20T15:24:00.003+02:00

"Researchers using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are reporting a gamma-ray explosion that blows away anything they've seen before. The blast, recorded last fall in the constellation Carina, released the energy of 9,000 supernovae.

Typical gamma-ray bursts emit photons with energies between 10 kiloelectron volts and about 1 megaelectron volt. Photons with energies above megaelectron volts have been seen in some very rare occasions but the distances to their sources were not known.
[...] the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected photons with energies between 8 kiloelectron volts and 13 gigaelectron volts arriving from the gamma-ray burst 080916C.
[...]the blast occurred 12.2 billion light-years away[...]"

Source: http://www.universetoday.com/2009/02/19/fermi-glimpses-wildest-ever-gamma-ray-blast/

Top Gear's "white Stig" revealed?

2009-01-25T19:21:00.002+02:00

Speculations are high and odds are that he is...Ben Collins?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Collins_(driver)

"Collins, from Bristol, was unmasked as The Stig after he went to a photographic studio to commission a series of prints of The Stig in action and told the owners who he was.
A builder also told a newspaper that he had seen The Stig's distinctive white disguise in Collins' house. "

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4298841/Top-Gear-Rumours-that-Ben-Collins-was-The-Stig-started-on-YouTube-more-than-a-year-ago.html

The Stig Revealed! - Watch more amazing videos here

International Year of Astronomy 2009

2009-01-22T13:47:00.003+02:00

Don't forget, this year is the International Year of Astronomy. Official website: www.astronomy2009.org

One of this year's projects is a relatively cheap, high-quality telescope, "aiming to give 10 million people their first look through an astronomical telescope in 2009"; formally called a Galileoscope.
More information on the project at the official IYA2009 site and here.
Considering I want to buy a good and affordable telescope, which would also be my first one, I wouldn't mind a Galileoscope :).

"Earth-mass Exoplanets and Their Uses"

2009-01-21T14:11:00.002+02:00

Fascinating ideas for the general public, this article reflects some of my own ideas as well, for quite some time now.
Excellent article: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=5619
Spread the word about what you read :).

Meteorite exploding over Scandinavia and rapping about astrobiology

2009-01-19T06:40:00.000+02:00

Enjoy the beautiful colours of this exploding meteorite over southern Sweden. Apparently it was also visible from Denmark and Holland. Fortunately, (I think) nobody was hurt.

And rapping about astrobiology. A bit weird I must admit, but I've seen worse :).

Colbert measuring sizes... sort of

2009-01-17T07:32:00.001+02:00

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Little Victories - America's Galaxy Is Big

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

"The year 2008 in photographs"

2009-01-16T13:49:00.002+02:00

Staggering photos. Worth watching.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html

Life on Mars?

2009-01-16T13:29:00.003+02:00

Looks like that's not as far fetched as it used to be.
"A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars." What this means is that the Red Planet is either biologically or geologically active.
Astrobiologists are interested in this because organisms release much of Earth's methane as they digest nutrients. However, other purely geological processes, like iron oxide also release methane.
Let's just hope that NASA's future missions will reveal definitive answers as to whether Mars is "inhabited" or not. Might I add, this is great news for any astronomer/astrobiologist and not only!

Sources:
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=7828

Poodwaddle.com

2009-01-15T01:34:00.001+02:00

Poodwaddle.com

Bucegi Mountains

2009-01-15T00:56:00.002+02:00

Spot the people in this amazing picture (taken by myself with zoom) :)

First real snow in my city

2009-01-08T16:39:00.004+02:00

Finally here :)

Photo

View Larger Map

Our Galactic Center

2009-01-06T06:41:00.002+02:00

NASA, ESA, and Q.D. Wang, with the obvious help of Hubble Telescope, managed to capture a hi-res panorama of Milky Way's galactic center. 300 light years of it...

Click here for a super-hi-res (15MB) jpeg, or check the links down below for various other sizes.

Sources:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/01/05/hubble-spitzer-collaborate-for-stunning-panorama-of-galactic-center/
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/02/

Yahoo UK's "Top Stories"

2009-01-05T17:29:00.005+02:00

With wars all around the world, famine, diseases, natural disasters and calamities... you know, the usual, Yahoo UK manages to top them all with a ground-breaking story:

Link to the "story":
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/090105/214/id8u5.html

Greenhouse Effect and a New Type of Cement

2009-01-05T12:48:00.004+02:00

A new type of cement, developed by Novacem, could be one temporary solution to the Greenhouse Effect that's affecting all of us, by means of a higher global temperature, thus leading to a multitude of side-effects.

Novacem is developing the new generation of green cement systems that will help combat global warming by locking atmospheric CO₂ into construction materials

Our cement uniquely combines the sustainability of timber and the recyclability of metal with the technical properties and high thermal mass of concrete. Its use therefore minimises CO₂ emissions during building construction, operation and disposal.

Our novel recyclable cement system is based on magnesium oxide and special mineral additives. In contrast to Portland cement, its manufacturing process causes minimal CO₂ emissions and it requires lower temperature processing. It hardens by absorbing atmospheric CO₂ and therefore offers the unique potential to develop a range of 'carbon negative' construction products.

The main ingredients that will make it so effective are magnesium silicates.

Standard cement, also known as Portland cement, is made by heating limestone or clay to around 1,500C. The processing of the ingredients releases 0.8 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement. When it is eventually mixed with water for use in a building, each tonne of cement can absorb up to 0.4 tonnes of CO2, but that still leaves an overall carbon footprint per tonne of 0.4 tonnes.

Novacem's cement, which has a patent pending on it, uses magnesium silicates which emit no CO2 when heated. Its production process also runs at much lower temperatures - around 650C. This leads to total CO2 emissions of up to 0.5 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement produced. But the Novacem cement formula absorb far more CO2 as it hardens - about 1.1 tonnes. So the overall carbon footprint is negative - ie the cement removes 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne used.

Sources and useful links:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/novacem-making-co2-absorbing-cement-and.html

http://www.novacem.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Earth at Peril

2009-01-04T18:41:00.001+02:00

Earthquakes at Yellowstone, USA could mean the end of civilisation on Earth as we know it. The national park is no stranger to quakes, but their frequency over the last two weeks worried international scientists.
Excerpts from various websites:
Yellowstone National Park sits atop a supervolcano. The entire park is the depression of a caldera more than twice the size of Oahu that is the result of an unimaginably large eruption some 600,000 years ago. By comparison, the caldera left by the explosion of Mount Saint Helens in 1980 is about the size of downtown Honolulu. Saint Helens ejected 1.4 billion cubic years of ash that was detectable over an area of 22,000 square miles. The last Yellowstone eruption, which was not even the largest in Yellowstone's history, ejected 2,500 times the ash of the Saint Helens explosion.

One study predicts that half the U.S. could be covered in ash up to 3 feet deep. Earth could experience a "volcanic winter" with ash in the atmosphere keeping sunlight from reaching Earth's surface for several years.

Yellowstone National Park, located mainly in the state of Wyoming (stretching into Montana and Idaho), plays host to the Yellowstone Caldera, a volcanic hotspot where molten mantle rock bubbles to the surface. This activity creates hot springs and is the energy source of many geysers.

Sources:
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090104_Quake_swarm_at_Yellowstone_may_signal_blast.html?page=1&c=y
http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone_full.html
http://www.astroengine.com/?p=2934

Omega Universe

Earth Eclipse

Strongest GRB detected yet

Top Gear's "white Stig" revealed?

International Year of Astronomy 2009

"Earth-mass Exoplanets and Their Uses"

Meteorite exploding over Scandinavia and rapping about astrobiology

Colbert measuring sizes... sort of

"The year 2008 in photographs"

Life on Mars?

Poodwaddle.com

Bucegi Mountains

First *real* snow in my city

Our Galactic Center

Yahoo UK's "Top Stories"

Greenhouse Effect and a New Type of Cement

Earth at Peril

First real snow in my city