Mars Rocks: Clues to Life 4 Billion Years Ago
Posted: July 30, 2010 Filed under: BIODIVERSITY, opinions Leave a comment »
A new article in press of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters unveils groundbreaking research on the hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The findings may provide a link to evidence of living organisms on Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago in the Noachian period.
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25 Years of Dot-Com. Predictions for the Future
Posted: July 28, 2010 Filed under: opinions 1 Comment »
March 15, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the first “dot-com” registration on the Internet. With over 100 million domain registrations and counting, we’ve witnessed an explosion of communication, commerce, idea-sharing, and human connectivity unlike anything else in human history. This truly marks a revolutionary and transformational shift in the way we live, gather information, do commerce, and connect with each other. No domain is unaffected. From societies, governments, communities, businesses to individuals and families, we have all been profoundly impacted by the massive migration to the Internet.
The impact on societies across the globe cannot be understated as the Internet has provided a democratization tool for people to access information in real time across all boundaries. Still, there are some countries battling the policy of free access to the Internet as evidenced recently by China’s confrontation with Google. However, people find a way to get what they thirst for and eventually get around firewalls in ingenious ways.
Who can forget the Twitter-revolution in Iran last year as thousands and thousands of Iranians took to the streets to give voice to their aspirations for legitimacy in their election outcomes? The human voice is deep and relentless. It cannot be suppressed. Our new Internet technology literally gives voice to countless people of all ages, ethnicities, race, gender, religions, political persuasions, rich or poor. People who were previously disenfranchised are now empowered and equipped to express their voice!
Recently, with the cataclysmic disaster in Haiti, donations poured instantly as people used their social networks and texting to pour their generous funds to the people of Haiti. It’s never been easier to click your way to making an instant impact in the lives of people in one’s own neighborhood or to far away neighbors across the globe.
What Do You Predict for the Future of the Internet?
At the 25th Anniversay of .Com Policy Impact Forum in Washington DC on March 16, many prominent leaders from different fields discussed the impact of the dot-com sensation. These leaders shared their excitement along with their concerns for a free-wielding Internet/ technology. They looked through their “crystal ball” to predict what the future would hold with this powerful but challenging medium.
So what are your thoughts? What do you predict is the future of the Internet? Are you better off today being connected 24/7? Are you feeling overwhelmed or do you feel more in charge of your life? Has your productivity increased or decreased? How do you discern the credibility or truth behind all the countless messages, ideas or agendas online? How are you using the Internet to find solutions to your pressing problems? How has the Internet brought you new opportunities or brought you closer to your family, friends, or loved ones?
I encourage you to ask yourself: Where do I need to connect more? Where do I need to simply disconnect to gain better balance and control in my life? I know my grandchildren are already natives to the Internet. I am not. They face many great opportunities if they choose to anchor themselves on guiding principles that will help them determine what is good and what is not, and what is simply distracting or negative on the Internet. Without that anchor they are at risk of being enslaved by forces that will pull them in conflicting directions, leaving them without a principle-centered compass to help them take charge of their own lives.
This is an exciting time with great opportunities for good. I look forward to the future and the promise of people all around the world and their desire for greatness. The Internet can be a powerful tool to fulfill that greatness!
Source: -Stephen R. Covey
Asteroid Might Collide With the Earth in 2182
Posted: July 28, 2010 Filed under: earth, News, Space Leave a comment »
The potentially hazardous asteroid ‘(101955) 1999 RQ36′ has a one-in-a-thousand chance of impacting the Earth, and more than half of this probability indicates that this could happen in the year 2182, based on a global study in which Spanish researchers have been involved. Knowing this fact may help design in advance mechanisms aimed at deviating the asteroid’s path.
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Era of Interceptor Missiles Began in India
Posted: July 26, 2010 Filed under: India, News Leave a comment »
India today successfully conducted the test fire of an interceptor missile to establish a Ballistic Missile defence (BMD) shield as part of the network-centric warfare.The mission was conducted successfully when the surface to surface Prthivi missile, described as targetted enemy missile, test fired from the launch complex of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea, was destroyed in mid air by an Advanced Air Defence (AAD), a single stage anti ballistic missile, test fired from the Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal.With this India has joined the elite club of nations having this technology.
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Dark Energy and the Universe
Posted: July 25, 2010 Filed under: Energy, Universe Leave a comment »
Dark energy has the cosmoslogists scratching their heads. Observations taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes will be needed in order to determine the properties of dark energy, which makes up about 70 percent of the universe. Probing dark energy, the energy in empty space causing the expanding universe to accelerate, calls for accurately measuring how that expansion rate is increasing with time. Dark energy is thought to drive space apart.
Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart. Astronomers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to hunt for supernovae (an energetic explosive event that occurs at the end of a star’s lifetime), using their brightness, astronomers could measure if the universe was expanding faster or slower in the distant past. In its search, Hubble discovered 42 new supernovae, including six that are among the most distant ever found. The farthest supernovae show that the universe was decelerating long ago, but then “changed gears” and began to accelerate.
Albert Einstein coined the term “cosmological constant” to represent the possibility that even empty space has energy and couples to gravity. Like other astronomers of the time, he thought that the universe was static and so proposed there was a repulsive force from space that kept the universe in balance.
Einstein discarded his own findings in 1929, when Edwin Hubble found through his research that the universe was expanding and not
static. Today, new data from Hubble may well prove Einstein was on the right track. The pull of gravity and the push of dark energy have been trying to outmuscle each other since the beginning of time. About seven billion years ago, dark energy got the upper hand because the universe had grown so large and matter (the source of gravity) had expanded and scattered.
Unstable dark energy could cause a “big rip” (the universe expands violently, then the stars, planets and atoms come unglued) or a “big crunch” (the universe implodes or compresses). Cosmologists believe about 70 percent of the universe consists of dark energy, 25 percent is dark matter, and only four percent normal matter (the stuff that stars, planets and people are made of). Hubble observations suggest the dark energy may be Einstein’s cosmological constant, an energy percolating out of the vacuum of the space between galaxies. The energy of the universe is dominated by empty space emitting a repulsive form of gravity that is pushing the universe apart. But what does all this mean to Earth? Even if Einstein’s theory was correct, we won’t have to be concerned about the “dark side” for about 30 billion years, according to Hubble researchers.
For further information, visit: http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/progr am/darkenergy.html
source:http://www.nasa.gov/missions/deepspace/f_dark-energy.html
NASA Spacecraft Camera Yields Most Accurate Mars Map
Posted: July 24, 2010 Filed under: Space Leave a comment »
A camera aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet.The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey. Researchers at Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have been compiling the map since THEMIS observations began eight years ago.
The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic. Users can pan around images and zoom into them. At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 100 meters (330 feet) wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.
The new map is available at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/maps/?layer=thm_dayir_100m_v11 .
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Airglow(Nightglow)
Posted: July 24, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Airglow (also called nightglow) is the very weak emission of light by a planetary atmosphere. In the case of Earth’s atmosphere, this phenomenon causes the night sky to never be completely dark (even after the effects of starlight and diffused sunlight from the far side are removed).The airglow phenomenon was first identified in 1868 by Swedish scientist Anders Ångström. Since then it has been studied in the laboratory, and various chemical reactions have been observed to emit electromagnetic energy as part of the process. Scientists have identified some of those processes which would be present in Earth’s atmosphere, and astronomers have verified t
hat such emissions are present.
Airglow is caused by various processes in the upper atmosphere, such as the recombination of ions which were photoionized by the sun during the day, luminescence caused by cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere, and chemiluminescence caused mainly by oxygen and nitrogen reacting with hydroxyl ions at heights of a few hundred kilometers. It is not noticeable during the daytime because of the scattered light from the Sun.
Some Facts About India
Posted: July 23, 2010 Filed under: India 1 Comment »Dear Readers
Found this very useful post about India and thought of sharing it with you all.
INDIA
Continent :Asia
Region Southern Asia Indian subcontinent
Coordinates 21°N 78°E / 21°N 78°E / 21; 78
Area Ranked 7th 3,287,263 km2 (1,269,219.3 sq mi) 90.44% land 9.56 % water
Borders Total land borders: 15,106.70 km (9,386.87 mi) Bangladesh: 4,096.70 km (2,545.57 mi) China (PRC): 3,488 km (2,167 mi) Pakistan: 3,323 km (2,065 mi) Nepal: 1,751 km (1,088 mi) Myanmar: 1,643 km (1,021 mi) Bhutan: 699 km (434 mi) Afghanistan: 106 km (66 mi) Highest point Kangchenjunga 8,586 m (28,169.3 ft) Lowest point Kuttanad -2.2 m (−7.2 ft) Longest river Ganges–Brahmaputra Largest lake Chilka Lake
- Himalayas extend 2500 km and covers an area of about 500,000 sq km. It comprises three almost parallel ranges interspersed with large plateaus and Valleys. The Himalayas has some of the world’s highest peaks. The states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh lie mostly in the Himalayas.
- The world’s highest peak Everest is in the Himalayan ranges (7500m)
- Patkai and other ranges in the north and the north east. Also called the Eastern Ghats, it runs from West Bengal state in the north, through Orissa and Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu in the south. Average elevation is about 610 metres.
- The Vindhya Range is a low mountain range of central India. It extends for a distance of 1050 km and separate the Indo-Gangetic plain from the Deccan Plateau on the south
- The triangular shaped, Satpura Range is in central India. The range rises in eastern Gujarat state near the Arabian Sea coast, running east through Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to Chhattisgarh.
- The Aravalli ranges runs along western India and extends approximately 300 miles northeast-southwest across Rajasthan state.
- The Sahyadri ranges or the Western ghats range runs along the western border of the Deccan plateau (Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu), from the Tapti river near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra to the southern tip of the Indian peninsula (Kanyakumari).
- It runs approximately 1600km. and elevation generally ranges from 915 to 1,220 metres, rising over 2,440 metres in places.
The Indian sub continent has several distinct physical divisions. They can be classified under the following The northern mountains ( The Himalayan Mountains): Has some of the tallest peaks in the world which are mostly covered with snow throughout the year. Many big rivers originate from the Himalayas. The fertile plains of the Ganga (The Indo- Gangetic Plain): The plains lie to the south of the Himalayas between the Indus and the Ganga river. This region extending from Punjab to Assam is a densely populated area and produces the major part of the country’s food grains and is referred to as the ‘Food Bowl of India‘ The desert region (The Thar Desert): The north western part of India is made up of the Thar desert and occupies most of Western Rajasthan. The plateaus (The Malwa, the Chotanagpur and the Deccan Plateau) : The plateaus are separated from the Northern plains by mountains and hill ranges including the Vindhyas, Aravalli, Satpura, Maikala and Ajanta. The Deccan plateau with its rolling hills and numerous rivers, occupies most part of central and southern India. The coastal plains (The Eastern and the Western Coastal Plains): They are narrow strips of plain land that lie on either side along the coast of the peninsula, beyond the ghats. The Eastern Coastal plains includes the Coromandel Coast in the south and the Western Coastal plains includes the Konkan, Kankara, and the Malabar coasts. The Two Ghats (Eastern and the Western Ghats): The Ghats are mountain ranges on the east and west coasts of the subcontinent. To the east and west of the Deccan plateau lie the Eastern Ghat and the Western Ghat, respectively. The Islands ( The Andaman and Nicobar, the Lakshadweep Islands): Lakshadweep lies in the Arabian Sea on the west of the Indian Peninsula and Andaman and Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal on the east. The Indo gangetic plains, the desert region and the Himalayas together form the North India and the south peninsula with the coastal plains, the two ghats and the Deccan Plateau form the South India.
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The Big Crunch
Posted: July 21, 2010 Filed under: Space Leave a comment »
The Big Crunch is one of the scenarios predicted by scientists in which the Universe may end. Just like many others, it is based on Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. That is, if the Big Bang describes how the Universe most possibly began, the Big Crunch describes how it will end as a consequence of that beginning.
It tells us that the Universe’s expansion, which is due to the Big Bang, will not continue forever. Instead, at a certain point in time, it will stop expanding and collapse into itself, pulling everything with it until it eventually turns into the biggest black hole ever.Everything is squeezed when in that hole. Hence the name Big Crunch.
For scientists to predict with certainty the possibility of a Big Crunch, they will have to determine certain properties of the Universe. One of them is its density. It is believed that if the density is larger than a certain value, known as the critical density, an eventual collapse is highly possible.
Initially, scientists believed that there were only two factors that greatly influenced this expansion: the gravitational force of attraction between all the galaxies (which is proportional to the density) and their outward momentum due to the Big Bang.
Now, just like any body that goes against gravity, e.g. when you throw something up, that body will eventually give in and come back down for as long as there is no other force pushing it up.
Thus, that the gravitational forces will win in the end, once seemed like a logical prediction. But that was until scientists discovered that the Universe was actually increasing its rate of expansion at regions farthest from us.
To explain this phenomena, scientists had to assume the presence of an unknown entity, which they dubbed ‘dark energy’. It is widely believed that this entity is pushing all galaxies farther apart. With dark energy, and what little is known about it, in the picture, there seems to be little room for the possibility of a Big Crunch.
Right now, measurements made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory indicate that the strength of dark energy in the University is constant. Just for added information, an increasing dark energy strength would have supported the possibility of a Big Rip, another universe ending that predicted everything (including atoms) to be ripped apart.
Even with an unchanging dark energy strength, an ever expanding universe is still the most likely scenario. So unless data that contradicts these properties are collected, the Big Crunch will have to remain as a less favored theory.
Sources:
Cool Roofs Can Mitigate Global Warming
Posted: July 20, 2010 Filed under: Global Warming 1 Comment »
Lighter colored pavement is more reflective, resulting in a cooler surface temperature. (Credit: Photo courtesy ASU National Center of Excellence for SMART Innovations)
Light-colored rooftops and roads really curb carbon emissions and combat global climate change? The idea has been around for years, but now, a new study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that is the first to use a global model to study the question has found that implementing cool roofs and cool pavements in cities around the world can not only help cities stay cooler, they can also cool the world, with the potential of canceling the heating effect of up to two years of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.
