Oh!

Mars Curiosity rover celebrates loneliest birthday ever by singing 'Happy Birthday to Me'

The rover has already succeeded in its main mission, showing that ancient Mars could have supported life

There might not have been anyone around to hear it, but yesterday a very familiar tune played out across the surface of Mars. To celebrate the one year anniversary of landing on the surface of red planet, Nasa engineers managed to coax a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday To You’ out of the 2,000lb Curiosity rover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uxVVgBAosqg

Nature as Artist

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Low tide

The hand of ………?

Darksiders?

Could the universe have a dark side, complete with its own force, a zoo of particles and even a shadow version of the Milky Way?

"Could there be a mirror world where interesting things are going on?

The way stars and galaxies move shows there is more mass present than we can see.  To account for this, 80 per cent of the universe's matter must be dark.  The trouble is the stuff stubbornly refuses to interact with ordinary matter, except through gravity, so has not been conclusively detected.

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat–Simple! Ask the Lightbringers

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences – and how do we avert the cataclysm?

IT COULD easily be the plot for a Hollywood disaster movie. Last February, a young dental surgeon called Jaime Nomen was sailing along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, checking images on his laptop from an observatory 600 kilometres away. Suddenly he spotted a speck of light speeding through the constellation Boötes. Nomen knew exactly what it was.

He alerted the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which collects information about asteroids and comets. Telescopes around the world swung into action, checking the new asteroid's orbit. The result was sensational: asteroid 2012 DA14 was on near-collision course with the Earth. (New Scientist; registration required.)

Maybe they’ll start looking somewhere else for Goldilocks Heaven?

No ultimate judge

Shockingly, Earth – which used to be smack-bang in the middle of our sun's habitable zone – is now a scant million kilometres away from the warm edge, so almost too hot for liquid water. Of course, we know Earth is robustly life-friendly – the mismatch is probably because neither definition accounts for clouds, which reflect sunlight away from Earth.

As Earth shows, the Goldilocks zone is no ultimate judge of habitability, something exoplanet researchers have known for years. As well as clouds, volcanic activity or the location of other moons or planets in the solar system, may be important for life to develop on planets like Earth.

Ring Any Bells?

Sandy! What have you been up to?

Only joking! Cheers

Maybe we should have used NASA

A cosmic collision: Two satellites due to smash into surface of the moon… but don't worry, it was all planned by Nasa

I just remembered a song n Mάνα μou used to listen to - Πιο Ψηλά Κι' Aπ' T' Άστρα

Maybe the Darksiders had a point!

US planned to blow up the moon

A missile carrying the bomb would have been launched from an undisclosed location on Earth and travel to the moon, where it would detonate on impact.

The project would have been carried out in 1959, but was reportedly abandoned by military officials due to fears that it would endanger people on Earth should the mission fail.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/us-planned-to-blow-up-the-moon-20121128-2aejm.html#ixzz2DWjO8Cbu

Finder’s, keepers?

Is this you?

Found it on the beach, brought it home to take a photo and will put it back now.  Might have done an Internet search, but I can’t really read it.

The Rewards of beachcombing

Been there, done that!

How to save humanity from a giant asteroid? Shoot paintballs at it, of course

MIT graduate proposes theory as a submission to the 2012 'Move an Asteroid Technical Paper Competition' sponsored by the UN

Perhaps they should read The Stone Summons? or read this - This is totally unbelievable....... 

Sea glass has new home!

Having doubled in size in one fell swoop, it seemed time for a new home.

The Smallest Sea Glass Collection in the World just got bigger!

No idea what it is, it is less opaque when wet, and seems to have bits of fine wire through it.  Please le tme know if you know what it is.

Many scientists have said it didn't exist.....

Scientists uncover mystery of ball lightning

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-12/scientists-uncover-mystery-of-ball-lightning/4310800

By ABC Science Online's Darren Osborne

Posted 8 hours 16 minutes ago

Photo: Ball lightning can occur when regular lightning strikes near non-conductive surfaces. (PJ Taylor: User submitted via ABC Contribute)

Map: Australia

A team of Australian scientists believe they have uncovered the cause of one of nature's most bizarre phenomenon - ball lightning.

Ball lightning is typically the size of a grapefruit and lasts up to 20 seconds.
"Ball lightning has been reported by hundreds of people, for hundreds of years and it has been a mystery," said CSIRO scientist John Lowke, lead author of a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.

Dinosaur footprint of the future?

Once in a blue moon!

If you have read The Stone Summons, you may remember my Gran and me saw a blue moon.  A skid at  school started making a fool of me, saying blue moon was just a phrase and din't mean the moon was blue.  So I was very happy when our science teacher showed me this!  (How did he know it mattered?  Because this skid put it on Facebook, didn't he! But doesn't know anything about privacy settings, serves him right!)

"The origin of the modern version of this phrase dates to March 1946, when amateur astronomer James Hugh Pruett made a calendar error in an article for Sky & Telescope magazine.  Before then, the definition of a blue moon wasn’t quite set in stone.  It meant different things, including an obvious absurdity, a symbol for sadness and loneliness, a gin and curaçao cocktail, or a rare event.  In some very unusual cases the moon will actually appear blue, generally because of dust resulting from a volcanic eruption, forest fire, or dust storm.  The twice-in-one-month full moon definition has now become the standard."

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