Remember that meteorite from Mars that caused a huge stir back in 1996 when NASA announced that it thought it had found remnants of fossilized bacteria in it? If you don’t, just know that this meteorite, named the “Alan Hills meteorite,” had what we initially thought was a fossilized remnant of ancient Martian bacteria. But then some other scientists came forth with an equally plausible hypothesis for a non-microbial origin of the microscopic formation. So ever since then, the scientific community has been at odds, with one camp saying “Yes, it’s an ancient Martian microbe! There really was life on Mars!” and another camp saying “Nope. That formation wasn’t biological in origin.” But new technology has shed some light on the subject that wasn’t possible back then. Researchers at the Johnson Space Center have used more sophisticated High Resolution Electron Microscopy than was available in 1996 to study the meteorite, and their findings contradict the nay-sayers. So, if no new nay-saying hypotheses come out, then we can be pretty damn certain that microbial life once existed on Mars. AND it may even still exist there, under the surface! (Via Universe Today)

Kottke.org is one of longest-running blogs in existence, and it’s almost always full of random awesomeness. In this case, it’s all about the H1N1 vaccine, and how it and other vaccines are made. I had no idea it took soooo many chicken eggs. Do yourself a favor and read all about it.

Now here’s yet another hilarious comic from xkcd:

I woke up at 4:45 this morning, feeling restless and full of energy, so I snuck out for a walk. But I didn’t get very far.

As I walked past the hotel’s reception building, each step took me farther into a thick darkness that left me more unsure of my surroundings. I crossed the street into a vacant lot and looked up at the sky. The stars were breathtaking.

I quickly spotted Venus and the Big Dipper, but nothing else looked familiar. There were just too many stars. Then a sudden movement caught my eye. A meteorite dashed toward the horizon at an improbable speed.

How wonderful that Sedona has purposefully banned bright lights. No human invention could ever compare to the glorious light show of that desert sky.

Soon, the silhouette of Coffeepot Rock started to appear on the horizon. The sun was coming up.

I decided to drive up the steep, narrow, winding Airport Road to greet the sunrise from Airport Lookout. To my surprise, the parking lot was almost full. I took the last open spot and began the hike up the hillside. As I approached the crest, I saw the silhouettes of four or five photographers and their tripods. Beyond them, I glimpsed the first orange-red rays of the rising sun.

What a perfect way to start Thanksgiving Day.

A couple of hours later, Steve and I were on the road to my sister Regi’s house in Chandler. We shared a wonderful Thanksgiving feast of Greek food with Reg, her friend Danielle and four dogs. I was in heaven.

We all sat around and chatted until the light faded. It was time for our drive back to Sedona. I was sad to bid Regi farewell, and sad to know this would be my last night in Sedona. But as George Harrison once wrote, all things must pass.

For my part, I’m very grateful for my life. I’ve been truly privileged and incredibly fortunate. Happy Thanksgiving.

elle n’est pas passé loin, en trainant sur http://www.lemonde.fr/

Beaucoup de blogueurs ont signalé cette vidéo: une météorite explosant dans le ciel au-dessus de Johannesburg en Afrique du Sud, samedi dernier. Le flash est impressionnant. Une autre météorite a explosé récemment au-dessus de Bone en Indonésie. Quelle menace représentent-elles?

La météorite de Johannesburg (vidéo 1) est estimée d’un diamètre de 1 mètre. Elle serait de composition rocheuse (morceau d’astéroïde) car on n’a pas trouvé de débris. Dans le cas d’une météorite ferreuse (morceau de comète) on retrouve des débris au sol.

Ce cas n’est pas isolé. D’autres météorites d’une certaine importance ont été signalées ces dernières années. En Indonésie, la ville de Bone (vidéo 2) a connu une grande frayeur en octobre dernier:

«Dans plusieurs villages, des témoins affirment avoir vu ce matin-là, vers 11 heures, une “boule de feu” traverser l’horizon, puis se désagréger dans un panache de fumée. L’explosion, entendue à des dizaines de kilomètres, a provoqué de nombreuses scènes de panique. Pensant à un séisme ou à un crash d’avion, beaucoup ont préféré s’enfuir de leurs maisons. Des écoles ont été évacuées par précaution. Au sol, les dégâts, occasionnés par la secousse, sont légers : à Latteko, des habitations ont été endommagées. A Panyula, le bilan est plus lourd : une fillette de 9 ans, souffrant de troubles cardiaques, a succombé à un infarctus, vraisemblablement dû au choc de la déflagration.

“Sa vitesse devait approcher les 20 km/seconde. En se désintégrant, elle a dégagé une énergie proche de 50 kilotonnes, soit un peu plus de trois fois l’énergie de la bombe atomique d’Hiroshima”

Grâce à l’étude des ondes infrasonores, le diamètre de l’objet céleste a été estimé entre 5 et 10 mètres.

Fight, fight, fight. Just what the world needs, a meteorite custody battle. OK, in one corner we have disability pensioner Tom King who discovered a suspicious 25kg rock believed to be a meteorite on Rywanda Plainview, a property he was caretaking for in Cunnamulla. In the other corners we have, the owners of the property, two men who helped lift the rock onto the back of Mr King’s ute, the Queensland museum and police.  When Mr King found the “meteorite”, believed to be worth tens of thousands of dollars, he was unable to lift it onto his ute to put in his stone collection so he asked two men to give him a hand. Next thing he knows the police are at his door, he’s arrested and the friggin rock taken. Seems everyone wants to lay claim to the friggin thing. Police are now holding the chunk of shiny rock until ownership is determined. Geez, I hope it ain’t friggin kryptonite or Superman will be pissed!

Psst I wonder if aliens fight over our friggin space junk?

21/11/2009:un meteorite precipita verso la Terra ed esplode sopra i cieli del Sudafrica. Sembra uno scenario da film catastrofico ma é realtà. Dopo i casi riportati della Lituania e dell’Indonesia,é toccato al Sudafrica vedere questo spettacolo affascinante quanto inquietante. Si pensava che il corpo celeste fosse precipitato in una zona disabitata del Botswana ma dopo ricerche si é scoperto che il missile proveniente dall’universo si é disintegrato al contatto con l‘atmosfera. Ecco qui lo spettacolare video dell’evento

Che il cielo stia aggiustando la mira perché stufo di noi?

Their fossilised remains have been found in the rock, which was blasted out of Mars 16 million years ago as the solar system was forming.

The meteorite, called Allen Hills 84001, made headlines in 1996 after fossils were found in it. Scientists believed they were bacteria from Earth that contaminated the rock while it lay in the frozen wastes.

But a Nasa report now says there is strong evidence they originated on Mars, according to The Sun.

Dr Emily Baldwin, deputy editor of the UK’s Astronomy Now magazine, said: “Many scientists argued that what looked like fossils in the meteorite were really caused by the explosive event, such as an asteroid impact, that blasted the rock out of Mars in the first place.

“But the Nasa team is now saying they have proved that they could not have been produced by the blast itself.

“If the features turn out to have an extraterrestrial, biological origin and were not formed during the 13,000 years the meteorite spent lying on Earth, this will have profound implications for our understanding of how life evolved in the solar system.”

Prof Colin Pillinger, of the Open University, who was behind Britain’s ill-fated Beagle 2 probe to the planet that was lost on Christmas Day 2003, said: “This is good quality work and more compelling evidence to add to the mix. These guys have been plugging away at this for years. It is a very careful study by very reputable people.”

The Nasa study, led by Kathie Thomas-Keprta, found carbonate discs and tiny magnetite crystals inside the space rock. Scientists were able to use high resolution electron microscopes that were not available 13 years ago.

They concluded “unusual chemical and physical properties” in the meteorite were “intimately associated within and throughout these carbonate disks”. That, they said, was evidence of interaction with water on Mars more than 3.5 billion years ago.

Nasa is expected to announce the findings, from its Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, later this week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6660045/Bacteria-from-Mars-found-inside-ancient-meteorite.html

Image credit: NASA

Renewed claims of bacterial life in the ALH84001 meteorite have been published by the same NASA team who presented the initial findings back in 1996. The new paper suggests magnetic bacteria as being a potential source for tiny magnetite crystals found in the meteorite, and also goes on to refute many of the arguments published in response to the original work.

Full (47-page) paper here (requires e-access to Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta).

Tracce di batteri marziani fossilizzati rinvenuti attraverso una speciale analisi microscopica condotta dal Johnson Space Center della Nasa

Un meteorite marziano scoperto nel 1992 in Antartide conterrebbe tracce fossili di microrganismi vissuti anticamente su Marte. Ad anticipare la notizia, in via di pubblicazione sulla rivista scientifica Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, è il sito americano specializzato in attività spaziali Spaceflight Now. Il meteorite, Allen Hills o ALH 84001, è noto da tempo agli studiosi, che lo stanno analizzando fin dai primi anni ‘90. Tuttavia nessuno finora aveva trovato tracce fossili. Lo ha fatto il gruppo coordinato da Kathie Thomas Keprta, del Johnson Space Center della Nasa, utilizzando un microscopio elettronico ad alta risoluzione che ha permesso di analizzare i dischi di carbonato e i minuscoli cristalli di magnetite presenti all’interno del meteorite. Secondo gli autori della ricerca i batteri fossili sono racchiusi in cristalli di magnetite, prodotti dagli stessi batteri. La Nasa, riferisce ancora il sito americano, si prepara ad annunciare la scoperta nei prossimi giorni. Le prime osservazioni fatte sullo stesso meteorite vennero annunciate nel 7 agosto 1996 dalla Nasa e dalla Casa Bianca e in quell’occasione l’allora presidente Usa Bill Clinton aveva promesso che le ricerche in questo ambito sarebbero andate avanti.

“I microrganismi fossili su Marte ci sono; da geologo mi saprei stupito se non li avessero visti”: commenta così la notizia Vincenzo Rizzo, del dipartimento di Scienze della Terra dell’università di Firenze e del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Cnr), che ha descritto recentemente formazioni fossili marziane sull’International Journal of Astrobiology e un suo nuovo studio è in via di pubblicazione su un’altra rivista scientifica internazionale. Le ricerche di Rizzo, condotte in collaborazione con Nicola Cantasano, dell’Istituto per i Sistemi Agricoli e Forestali del Mediterraneo (Isafom) del Cnr, si basano sull’analisi delle immagini raccolte e trasmesse a Terra dalla sonda della Nasa Opportunity. Riguardano due tipi di formazioni: le sferette soprannominate “mirtilli”, individuate da tempo nella zona del pianeta chiamata Meridiani Planum, la grande pianura a Sud dell’equatore marziano. Le sferule, secondo i due ricercatori italiani, “potrebbero essere strutture organosedimentarie, probabilmente prodotte da microrganismi”. La loro origine potrebbe trovare una spiegazione simile a quella delle strutture chiamate stromatoliti presenti sulla Terra e formate da sottilissime lamine nelle quali sono intrappolati microrganismi antichissimi, sia animali (colonie di batteri) o vegetali (microscopiche alghe). Tuttavia, rileva Rizzo, “é difficile fare qualsiasi parallelo tra i microfossili marziani e qualsiasi forma di vita microscopica sulla Terra”.

Fonte:ansa.it

We saw something falling from the sky tonight, about 5:45 p.m.  We were heading west on Rte. 95, not yet at the Rte. 93 interchange.  It was shining bright — I say green, Sophie says white — and the light went out just before it would have hit the ground.

When we got to our party, other people there saw it, too, and they were south of Medford when they saw it.  So it definitely was very bright and heading somewhere in the Burlington area.

If you saw it, too, please post a comment and describe what you saw!

“The National” (CBC) among others ran this story in April 2007 that I found noted on a lost page…

Kryptonite has been discovered on earth…

But first let’s go back to 2006…I think they said it was ‘06…in the movie ‘Superman Returns’ a military crate was labelled with an obscure list of elements that comprised the green crystalline meteorite contained within (a piece of super boy Cal El’s home planet Kryton which in theory travelled here with him…hense, ‘Krytonite’).

Back to today, 30 years later Canadian metallurgists Pamela Whitfield and Simon Le Page from the NRC are asked to complete the analysis of an unknown mineral (and if I told you where it was found I would have to kill you, you know the deal).  They complete the testing and confirm the results.  They send the list of composite elements to their client who in turn searches the internet for the ‘ingredients’ and comes up with the ‘recipe’ from the movie.  Coincidence?

While movie watchers may be dismayed by the colorless, seemingly harmless pale whitish stone, true comic book fans will acknowledge the ‘fact’ that kryptonite comes in many colors, including white.  There is some serious contention for conspiracy theorists here isn’t there?   How could such a story be so easily discarded and swept into public TV news obscurity?  Could it be? Real?  The whole Canadian connection a coincidence?  Did one of ‘his’ followers in 2006 leak the document that ended up in the movie? Did that stone fall from the heavens as the last remnant of the lost planet? Is Superman listening? Are you out there? 

A priest once told me that coincidences are ’someone’s’ way of staying anonymous.  What do you think?

Meanwhile back on earth…according to the CBC, 30-40 new minerals are still being discovered every year.

Il Giornale: “Meteorite, sviato dall’orbita del Pianeta Rosso, passa a soli 14.000 km dalla terra, spettinando il presidente Berlusconi”.

*

Alfano impegnato in calcoli astronomici: “Valuteremo quale sarà l’impatto del ddl sui processi”.  Ce la farà? E se dovesse risultare incostituzionale, correggeranno il tiro di 14.000 km?

So that is the costume pretty much made. Just need to get some red shorts and black tights and white gloves and yellow shoes. But thats’ll be EASY.

Was reminded of a piece by Maurizio Cattelan, who is brill, and he knew Ettore Sottsass!!! Who is a boma of mine

Its this piece by him called “inside Picasso’s head” he wanders around getting his photo taken with members of the public like in disneyland. I think its quite similar to my art ideas, but its maybe to do with the artist more than the art. My work is to do with the art being the celebrity that people want to meet.

There is also a piece by him who i quite like as well where the pope is hit by a meteorite.

Don’t know what it means but I don’t mind, and maybe dont even want to know.

So long farewell auf wiedresein goodbye

MUONIONALUSTA METEORITE KNIFE w/ MOSIAC MAMMOTH TUSK  PIECES

@Php. 46,900

The blade material is meteorite Muonionalusta from Sweden. On handle is a 8 Spectrolite cabochons from Finland. Handle is made of mammoth tusk pieces. It is a mosaic of mammoth tusk slab.

knife weight:         193,5 g.

knife size:               180 x 45 x 32 mm.

edge weight:           95,0 g.

edge size:                 71 x 32 x 5 mm.

MUONIONALUSTA 

The Meteroite Muonionalusta was first discovered in 1906 in the area close to “Muonionalusta” in Norrbotten, Kiruna, Sweden (Coordinates 67*48′N/23*6′ E). His beautiful meteorite is classified as a fine Octahedrite, and has spectacular etch patterns. Muonionalusta is only rarely found on the meteorite market as the strewn field is within the Arctic Circle, making searching for it very difficult. The total known weight of Muonionalusta is unknown, and until recently, most has been locked up in Museum collections, with very little in private hands.

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta – Mar, 10/27/2009 6:31 PM

Dopo tre settimane di indagine, gli astronomi del National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan) hanno concluso che l’esplosione in aria avvenuta sopra le acque di Bone nel Sud Sulawesi (Indonesia) l’8 ottobre 2009 è stato il risultato di un meteorite.
L’esperto Thomas Djamaluddin di Lapan ha detto che il meteorite ha colpito l’atmosfera ad una velocità di 20,3 chilometri al secondo, provocando una grande esplosione pari all’esplosione di 50 kilotoni di tritolo (Il Corriere della Sera parla di 10 kilotoni).
Il meteorite era parte di un asteroide di 10 metri di diametro, ha detto Thomas.
Questi asteroidi raramente hanno causato danni sulla terra ad eccezione di quelli con un diametro di almeno 25 metri o più.
L’esplosione ha scatenato voci di un incidente aereo, visto che nello stesso momento alcuni jet ed elicotteri indonesiani della Air Force’s Sukhoi stavano svolgendo missioni di routine.

Spazio/ un Corpo celeste di 10 metri si disintegra in cielo
Un super asteroide fa scattare nel mondo l’allerta anti nucleare
Indonesia, impatto pari a tre bombe atomiche

MILANO — Gli specialisti del Pentagono e della Nasa hanno sciolto, con una con­clusione da brivido, il miste­ro per quanto è accaduto l’8 ottobre nel cielo dell’Indone­sia. Erano le 11 del mattino quando un tuono poderoso faceva tremare le pareti delle case della città di Bone lungo la costa e la gente correva in strada pensando al terremo­to. Ma guardando in cielo as­sistevano a una pioggia di polveri e a nuvole di vapore che la tv indonesiana ripren­deva mostrando l’enigmati­co fatto e diffondendo la pau­ra.

Una preoccupazione mag­giore assaliva i sorveglianti del Pentagono che nei conti­nenti gestiscono l’Internatio­nal Monitoring System, cioè quella catena di stazioni che con sistemi a infrasuoni regi­strano eventuali esplosioni nucleari sul pianeta o nell’at­mosfera. Così la Comprehen­sive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation controlla il ri­spetto degli accordi sul ban­do dei test nucleari. Anche a 18 mila chilometri di distanza da Bone gli appa­rati mostravano che qualco­sa di grave e violento era ac­caduto nell’atmosfera. Gli specialisti dell’US Air Force e di alcune università che lavo­rano per la Nasa riuscivano dalle registrazioni a risalire alla causa dell’evento.

Un asteroide di dieci metri di diametro era caduto nel­l’atmosfera alla velocità di venti chilometri al secondo. Sbriciolandosi nell’impatto soprattutto a un’altezza tra i dieci e i venti chilometri sca­tenava un’energia di 50 kton (equivalente a cinquantamila tonnellate di tritolo), vale a dire una potenza oltre tre vol­te superiore alla bomba ato­mica di Hiroshima, che era di quindici kton. Per fortuna la natura del bolide cosmico e la sua taglia consentivano la disintegrazione e la dissipa­zione in cielo dell’energia senza provocare danni al suo­lo se non un’onda d’urto che ha fatto temere il peggio. Ora è tutto chiaro, ma quanto è successo ha aumen­tato l’inquietudine per un’eventualità fino a epoche recenti nemmeno considera­ta. Statisticamente corpi di ta­glia simile cadono una volta ogni dieci anni. Ma il guaio è che non si riesce ad accorger­sene come in Indonesia per­ché gli strumenti disponibili non li «vedono».

«Al di sotto dei cento me­tri — dice Tim Spahr, diretto­re del Minor Planet Center di Cambridge (Massachusetts, Usa) sovrintendente a questo mondo dei pianetini — ne ab­biamo registrati ben pochi. Ma non certo di dieci metri. Per scoprirne anche di più grandi intorno ai venti metri occorrono telescopi più po­tenti e costosi». Il pericolo esiste, infatti, a partire da questa taglia perché sarebbe in grado di provocare disa­stri in superficie. Quello ca­duto a Tunguska nel 1908 aveva un diametro di cin­quanta metri e distrusse la fo­resta per duemila chilometri quadrati. Oggi esiste una rete di sor­veglianza, ma è ancora trop­po ridotta. Il Congresso ame­ricano ha chiesto alla Casa Bianca di elaborare una stra­tegia precisa entro l’ottobre 2010 tenendo conto delle in­dicazioni che entro l’anno ela­borerà il National Research Council.

Intanto la scorsa settimana al congresso della Società ge­ologica americana, Sankar Chatterjee, dell’Università del Texas, ha presentato i ri­sultati di un’indagine che cambia lo scenario all’origine della scomparsa dei dinosau­ri. Chatterje ha dimostrato che l’asteroide o cometa di quaranta chilometri, arrivato sessantacinque milioni di an­ni fa, cadde non nella Peniso­la dello Yukatan, ma in India, nel bacino di Shiva. L’impat­to creò uno strato di polvere che avvolse l’intero pianeta sconvolgendo il clima.

Giovanni Caprara

(Il Corriere Della Sera) 02 novembre 2009

Altri articoli del blog:

Essere preparati al peggio (Di Ron Paul/Forbes)

The disclosure project (desecretare notizie sugli UFO)

Rivelazioni non autorizzate, Darwin e il controllo delle masse

Diario del saccheggio

http://wp.me/plKDA-rI

A piercing shriek penetrated his head and he woke up to the mother of all headaches.

Where am I?

A red light was flashing on his right and he realized it was the oxygen alert inside his helmet.

Oxygen? How long was I out?

He tapped on his wrist control and he saw a blurry “22:43″ appear in a reflection that appeared to be beyond his visor. He had been out for twenty-three hours.

No wonder my oxygen is critical. How long have I got?

There appeared to be an hour’s worth of oxygen at the current consumption rate. Since he had been unconscious for so long, the average was likely to increase.

Where is everybody?

“Pat? Anyone? This is Ron. Come in, anyone.”

He consulted his message buffer, but it was empty. Not a whisper for over twenty-three hours. This could only mean he was out of range, or something massive was blocking his reception.

My head! Think! Focus!

He started scanning his environment but his helmet lights revealed only rock, on all sides, with the exception of a small opening right above him. Or was it below him and he was upside down? Or maybe he was lying down?

I can hardly move. I must be inside a crevice.

He started scratching the surface in front of him and observed in what direction the dust was settling. It was floating very slowly towards his feet.

At least I’m the right side up. I need to get out of here. If no one has found me by now, I’m my only hope.

This wasn’t the first time he was in an accident, of course, but it had never involved unconsciousness, and rescue teams had always showed up within minutes. He suppressed the creeping panic. A quick tap on his wrist showed him his thrust control panel.

Minimal upward thrust. Here goes nothing.

He pressed his arms against his body in order to take up as little space as possible. The gas thrusters in his boots shot into action. He moved. His suit grated against the rock’s surface as he aimed his head carefully at the opening. For a moment he feared his backpack might get stuck, but he cleared the opening without effort. Now his helmet lights only showed distant dust. No walls. Dust on every side. And utter darkness.

As long as I can go upward, I’m not stopping.

He put his arms upward in case he would hit a ceiling. His helmet projected an ascension rate of one meter a second. One meter a second was enough to hurt your head when colliding with solid rock. Or lithium.

One week to retirement. It’s such a classic.

“Rescue team. Come in, rescue. Ron Miller for rescue. Come in.” In the back of his mind, the silence didn’t come as a surprise, and fighting a panic was taking more energy.

Eighty meters. I don’t remember falling eighty meters. I must have lost consciousness before that.

His helmet indicated “DT: 132 m” when his arms collided with solid rock. He pushed away from the wall behind him and the ascent continued unhindered.

After another two agonizing minutes, he gathered enough courage to try again. “Rescue team. Come in! Mayday!” His heartbeat increased. He closed his eyes. And he was bathing in screaming silence. And dust.

It took him another two minutes before he spotted the stars. Bitterly few brighter stars. His helmet projected the distance travelled since activation of the thrusters was two hundred and seventy meters.

I was at work at level six, so I fell one hundred and fifty meters?! If this hadn’t been Pluto, I’d be apple sauce.

He reduced his upward thrusters to keep him level and activated a side thruster in order to touch down on the edge of the mine. He took a very deep breath and closed his eyes again. “Rescue team. This is Ron Miller. Come in!” He tapped his wrist control and a communications diagnostic screen showed up in front of him. To his horror, all test results were nominal.

Why is it still so dark? Where are the floodlights?

The entire site was usually bathing in light, but all he saw were the surface right in front of him and the brightest stars, among them the Sun.

They’re gone. These lights are never turned off.

There was as much dust floating above the surface as there was in the mine.

Dust hasn’t settled yet. This could only mean something major happened. A massive explosion. A meteorite impact?

There was virtually no atmosphere around Pluto, so dust settled purely by gravity. Even though that was a tiny force on this planetoid, if any particles were still “airborne” after twenty-three hours, it meant they were descending from a tremendous altitude. Only a major impact could explain it.

Can’t wait for the dust to settle. Oxygen will last maybe forty minutes.

It was impossible for him to orient himself without any visibility, so he called up the homing beacon locator on his wrist.

Please. Please. Don’t let it be dead.

After three seconds a down arrow was projected in front of him. The tag next to it read “ABL9006″. All his muscles tightened and his throat started to feel dry.

ABL9006? For the past two years this has been LMP003.

He turned around until the arrow indicated upwards and started to stride in that direction. He knew he had to hurry, but with limited visibility this was a deadly undertaking. The area was littered with sharp rock and cracks.

He saw no trace of any human or mechanical remains for half an hour.

Why did they change the beacon? The old one got damaged? So somebody is still alive at the base and their radio equipment is out.

He got startled by a loud signal inside his helmet, accompanied by the frantic blinking of the oxygen warning. He realized that if he didn’t reach the base within ten minutes, his life would end. Four point seven billion kilometers from home. One week from retirement. Ten months from being reunited with his family.

His younger colleagues might have been relocated to another mine on one of the Jupiter moons, but for those above thirty, this was it. The market for lithium had collapsed since the introduction of the Q-cell, nearly a year ago. Mining on Pluto had become so horrendously expensive, only one company was still hanging on, but corners were being cut on all fronts. Their Pluto freighter was on its last set of engines, and any setback would mean a premature end of the company’s Pluto enterprise.

The freighter. I can’t see it through the dust. Or maybe it’s behind the asteroid.

Five minutes. “200 m to beacon” his helmet indicated.

It’s straight ahead. I should see it any second now.

He strode on for another minute.

Where is the base?

The old beacon was located in the middle of the base, which used to be a compound of different-sized structures.

Did they put the new beacon outside the base…?

A small structure on his left caught his eye. He moved towards it and discovered it was one of the miner quarters. Two minutes.

He turned the airlock’s handle and pushed it open, entered, and pushed it shut behind him. The panel inside was illuminated, which indicated it was still being powered by the module’s RTG generator. Ironically, it was based on decaying plutonium. He slammed the large button on the panel and immediately air was rushing into the lock.

He snapped off his helmet and took a deep breath. His head was pounding and he was more exhausted than he had ever been.

When he woke up, ten hours later, his head was still hurting, and he avoided looking straight into the soft tritium lighting. At least he had managed to get out of his suit and enter one of the ten bedrooms before passing out. When he looked through his window he noticed all the dust had finally settled.

This must be one of the old crew modules at the outer rim of the compound. I can’t make out any other modules. I’m not even sure where my quarters were. There are no points of reference.

He left the bedroom and went to a window at the other side of the container. His suppressed fears suddenly transformed into the crystal clear realization that this was pretty much the only remaining structure of the compound. He could make out some smaller transport containers and two or three disused vehicles. The usual compound floodlights were gone and the only artificial light in the area was shining out of the windows of his crew module.

The last shuttle must have taken the central command module with it. I’m lucky they left this first-generation crew container. It must have been more expensive to retrieve than abandon.

After gathering some breakfast, he spent the next hour taking stock of the module’s remaining supplies. Water was recycled for over ninety percent and the remaining tanks would last him for decades, if he lived soberly. Food supplies, he calculated, would keep him alive for at least fifty years. It wouldn’t be a gourmet’s dream, but he’d be alive.

He left the airlock at 11:10 and proceeded towards the nearest vehicle.

I have no idea what I’d do with a CTV if it worked. It’s not like I’d be making trips to the grocery store and back.

He needed to do something. Get a grip on his situation. Anything was better than sitting it out in the module. For fifty years. Or less. Alone with his thoughts. “Anyone? Come in, anyone. Ron Miller…alllll alone on Pluto.” He felt it couldn’t hurt to beam out some UHF waves. It’s not as if they lasted over a kilometer or two. The suit com system was designed for intra-crew communication only.

The first crew transportation vehicle he found had a shattered cockpit. Apparently it had encountered one of those sharp rocks at high speed. He might have been able to fix it over the next two decades, but right then it was useless. He spotted a second one, almost a kilometer away, at the other side of the compound.

They must have looked for survivors. Most of the men and women at the mine’s entrance must have bought it, though. Some of them down below with me might have survived. Maybe some were lucky enough not to get swallowed by a freaking crevice and got rescued.

The CTV seemed in operational shape, but the panel at the cockpit door wasn’t illuminated. It had no power.

The RTG is busted or they took it out to service a more recent vehicle. Or they put it in one of the drills at the mine. This operation was clearly running on its last resources. This meteorite or whatever calamity was clearly the final straw.

A faint flash in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He turned his head towards it. A small bright dot was rapidly rising on the horizon.

The freighter. It was behind the asteroid…

He felt his heart beat in his chest.

I need to get back to the module.

As he turned around to head back, he was overwhelmed by a bright light passing overhead. It was accelerating upward.

A cargo shuttle…

He noticed it had a cargo container attached underneath and wondered why they were still hauling lithium to the freighter. Unless…

…it’s the crew module…

Fifty years later, the Abandoned Base Locator beacon sent its last signal. No one would ever see the perfectly preserved frozen human leaning against it.

Scientists have announced that a large crater in Latvia that was claimed to be the results of a meteorite crashing to earth is, in fact, a hoax.

Crash and burn: the hoax meteorite crater in the Mazsalaca region of Latvia

Experts had rushed to the site after reports that a meteorite had landed late on Sunday in Latvia’s Mazsalaca region, near the Estonian border, and footage of the flames caused by its landing were widely shown after being posted on YouTube.

Unfortunately, it turned out it was just a hole someone had dug in the ground. The video (see below) was shot by a group of film-making students, which might be seen as something of a gievaway.

// ‘This is not a real crater. It is artificial,’ Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, said after inspecting the site on Monday.

Uldis and other experts who examined the hole in daylight said it was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite.

‘It’s artificial, dug by shovel,’ said Girts Stinkulis, a geologist at the University of Latvia.

Earlier Uldis had said his first impression of the 27 foot wide and nine foot deep crater was that it had indeed been caused by a meteorite. He said there was smoke coming out of the hole when he arrived.

Dainis Ozols, a nature conservationist, said he thinks the perpetrators tried to make their freshly-dug hole look like a meteorite crater by burning some kind of pyrotechnic compound at the bottom. He added he would analyze some samples taken from the site.

Inga Vetere of the Fire and Rescue Service said they received a call about the alleged meteorite on Sunday evening from an eyewitness. She said a military unit was dispatched to the site and found that radiation levels were normal.

Experts outside Latvia said it would be unusual for such a large meteorite to hit the Earth. The planet is constantly bombarded with objects from outer space, but most burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface.

Asta Pellinen-Wannberg, a meteorite expert at the Swedish Institute of Space Research, said she didn’t know the details of the Latvian incident, but that a rock would have to be at least three feet in diameter to create a hole that size.

Henning Haack, a lecturer at Copenhagen University’s Geological Museum, said when it comes to alleged meteorite crashes, ‘there always is a pretty large margin of error.

Tutti i giornali d’Europa hanno dato grande risalto al presunto meteorite precipitato domenica scorsa nei pressi del villaggio di Mazslaca, Lettonia. Molti siti hanno anche messo un video dell’impatto e varie foto del cratere di 15 metri di diametro e 5 di profondità. Molti scienziati, però, avevano subodorato che qualcosa non andava: la radiottività nei dintorni del cratere era a livelli normali. Infatti era tutto uno scherzo.

Ad organizzare il pesce d’aprile fuori stagione è stata la compagnia telefonica lettone Tele 2 che, come ha spiegato Janis Sprogis, direttore commerciale, intendeva «dimostrare al popolo che un’interessante storia è sufficiente per attirare sulla Lettonia gli occhi di tutto il mondo».

Tele 2 si è detta pronta a pagare i danni, che ha quantificato in 4.000 dollari. Linda Murniece, ministro dell’Interno lettone, ha dichiarato, invece, che le autorità sanzioneranno con una multa di 25.000 dollari questo «divertente scherzo», che ha causato alcuni problemi alle forze di polizia e agli abitanti di Mazslaca.

Fonte: www.corriere.it

In addition to being a totally awesome sight to behold, the famous pyramids of Giza in Egypt have also been a bit of a mystery. Scientists and archaeologists had a hard time explaining exactly how they were built given the technological limitations of the time period. The Pharaohs had a massive army of laborers at their disposal, but carving those massive blocks out of stone and moving them over miles of scorching desert would seem to be an insurmountable task even for an army of men. I was intrigued when I stumbled across the work of Dr. Joseph Davidovits, who claims that the stones were actually cast from a type of limestone concrete. This method would’ve require FAR less man-power and makes the pyramids’ construction seem much more reasonable. The seemingly impossible construction of the pyramids has fueled some ridiculous crackpot ideas that aliens helped build them. I was very glad to see that real science has actually explained the mystery of their construction quite well. Science wins. As always. Read more about his book Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones on the website of the Geopolymer institute.

This morning NASA attempted to launch the Ares I-X, the very first full-scale test version of their new Ares I rocket, which (if NASA proceeds on the current path) will replace the space shuttle as our primary means of transporting astronauts to low earth orbit. But a series of silly issues such as a probe cover getting stuck and a cargo ship accidentally entering the danger zone, combined with bad weather caused the launch to be delayed… possibly until tomorrow, maybe later.

Speaking of NASA… last week they got the full, detailed report from the Augustine Commission, which is a group of aerospace industry experts put together earlier this year by the Obama Administration to assess the state of manned spaceflight within NASA. Basically it’s a more fleshed-out, complete version of the preliminary report I mentioned several weeks ago on this blog. It’ll be interesting to see which solution NASA administrator Charles Bolden and the Obama Administration decide to go with. Personally, I’d like to see NASA get that additional 3 billion they need, but who knows? I can’t really summarize the options any better than Universe Today did last week when they reported on this, so I’ll just quote:

1. Maintain all programs as is, but extend the space shuttle program to 2011 and ISS to 2020. Without extra funding, the Ares rockets wouldn’t be ready until 2020 and there would never be enough money to go to the Moon.

2. Maintain current funding, scrap Ares I, develop an Ares V lite version (about 2/3 of Ares V heavy) and divert extra funds to ISS for extension to 2020. Buy commercial LEO human space flight. The Ares might be ready by 2025, and perhaps get to the Moon after 2030.

3. Add $3 billion per year and proceed with the Constellation program to return to the Moon. The ISS would have to be de-orbited in 2016 to allow a return to the Moon by about 2025.

4. Add $3 billion per year. Extend the ISS to 2020 and get to the Moon by about 2025. Use either Ares V Lite, or Shuttle-C for heavy lift.

5. Add $3 billion per year. Extend the shuttle program to 2011 and extend ISS to 2020. Instead of heading to land on the Moon, orbit the Moon, or go to Near Earth Objects and prepare to go to Mars. Use either Ares V Lite; a heavy Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) or, a shuttle-derivative.

So there you have it.

Yesterday some news outlets reported on a possible crater in Latvia left by a large meteorite impact. Well, it’s been confirmed as a FAKE, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Some Latvians must’ve had waaay too much time on their hands because after detailed inspection, shovel marks could be seen on the edge of the hole. I won’t spend too much time explaining all the obvious scientific inconsistencies because Dr. Phil Plait has done a thorough job of it at his blog Bad Astronomy. The biggest misconception about meteorites is that all of them cause a crater if they make it all the way to the ground- they don’t. In fact most that do hit the ground are less than a meter in diameter and actually are cold by the time they reach it. They also are traveling at normal terminal velocity and just hit with a non-crater-causing thud.

Finally, I’m really happy to see that the Large Hadron Collider repairs came along nicely and they’ve started inserting particles into loop. No actual collisions yet, but if all goes as planned they should be doing their first ones next month. Follow CERN on Twitter for updates.

RevolutionArt Magazine

Issue #22 – Due on 2010/01/01

Software used:

• Adobe Illustrator

• Adobe Photoshop