A “theory of everything” from a scientist at Case Western Reserve University got a lot of attention for positing that inanimate objects, from planets and water to strands of DNA, are alive. Not only is the assertion bunk, but the scientific and media phenomena surrounding the study reveals how sometimes crackpot ideas can get traction. … (SPACE.com)
If you haven’t seen it already, here it is again: Lego man in space:
NASA’s chief climate scientist James E. Hansen built his career studying Earth’s atmosphere and modeling humans’ potential impacts on climate. Then he realized that laboratory work wasn’t enough. Hansen never thought his decision to study atmospheric models would lead to his arrest. But there he was in handcuffs this summer, protesting at the White House against a pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.
It wasn’t the first arrest, either. Hansen, who has directed NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 31 years, earned the sobriquet “father of global warming” after testifying before Congress in 1988 on the dangers of global warming. He appeared again in 1989. Then he quietly returned to his work, turning aside television and media requests for the next 15 years because, as he said, “you have no time to do the science if you’re talking to the media.” … (Universe Today)
Space debris includes discarded man-made objects such as defunct satellites, which have exceeded their life times or malfunctioned, and rockets that have finished their missions.
Space debris is inevitably created during satellite operations. For example, solar array paddles are folded and tied with wires for launch, and when the paddles were deployed, the wire was discarded into space. Camera lens caps were also thrown away in space.
A vast number of fragments are created from either explosions or collisions. Most space debris is a result of the break-ups caused by these events. Satellites are launched on rockets that carry extra amounts of fuel. After a rocket has injected its satellite into the orbit, its remaining fuel can trigger an explosion, if its fuel tanks are heated by sunlight and highly pressurized. Satellites also carry fuel so they can keep the right orbit and attitude, so explosions can also happen if the fuel tanks of post-mission satellites get heated enough by sunlight. There have been about 200 such explosions confirmed to date.
And today there are also more collisions, as Earth’s orbit gets more crowded. The collision probability is becoming higher and higher. …. (JAXA)
Generally, solar flares are bad news for stuff orbiting the Earth. The impact of intense solar radiation on sensitive electronics can render the most sophisticated space technologies useless. Also, heating and expansion of the Earth’s upper atmosphere by peaking solar activity can increase drag on satellites, slowing them down, causing them to drop from orbit.
How could this negative situation be turned into a positive? What’s bad for operational satellites has the wonderful side effect of helping mankind with an increasingly pressing problem: the specter of space junk…. (Discovery)
Unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are disrupting normal patterns of glaciation, according to a study co-authored by a University of Florida researcher and published online Jan. 8 in Nature Geoscience.
The Earth’s current warm period that began about 11,000 years ago should give way to another ice age within about 1,500 years, according to accepted astronomical models.
However, current levels of carbon dioxide are trapping too much heat in the atmosphere to allow the Earth to cool as it has in its prehistoric past in response to changes in Earth’s orbital pattern. The research team, a collaboration among University College London, University of Cambridge and UF, said their data indicate that the next ice age will likely be delayed by tens of thousands of years.
That may sound like good news, but it probably isn’t, said Jim Channell, distinguished professor of geology at UF and co-author.
“Ice sheets like those in western Antarctica are already The furutrdestabilized by global warming,” said Channell. “When they eventually slough off and become a part of the ocean’s volume, it will have a dramatic effect on sea level.” Ice sheets will continue to melt until the next phase of cooling begins in earnest. … (TerraDaily)
