Image of the Day Planets Under a Red Sun
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Planets Under a Red Sun...[ 2514 ]
This artist's concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets. Such stars are dimmer and smaller than yellow stars like our sun, which makes them ideal targets for astronomers wishing to take images of planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets. NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping to identify young, red dwarf stars that are close to us by detecting their ultraviolet light (stars give off a lot of ultraviolet light in their youth).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Monday, October 24, 2011
ECB crisis ...[ 2513 ]
Sarkozy yields on ECB crisis role, pressure on Italy
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(Reuters) - European Union leaders made some progress toward a strategy to fight the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis on Sunday, nearing agreement on bank recapitalization and on how to leverage their rescue fund to try to stop bond market contagion.But final decisions were deferred until a second summit on Wednesday and sharp differences remain over the size of losses private holders of Greek government bonds will have to accept.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy backed down in the face of implacable German opposition to his desire to use unlimited European Central Bank funds to fight the crisis. Instead, the euro zone may turn to emerging economies such as China and Brazil for help in underpinning its sickly bond market.
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Near Fukushima plant ...[ 2512 ]
Journalists must empower those who have to stay near Fukushima plant
Mainichi Japan) October 24, 2011
Eight days after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant began to unfold, samples of spinach and raw milk were found to be contaminated with radioactive iodine in amounts exceeding the provisional permissible amount set by the Food Sanitation Act.
Government officials have tried to underplay the dangers with messages such as, "It's all right as long as you're not eating 4,200 servings of spinach," and "Even drinking 1 liter of milk every day will not cause any problems."
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However, the problem boils down to how much radiation we're exposed to at the dinner table. As radiation contamination fears spread to water, vegetables and fish, we decided that releasing the reference dosages of radiation found in various food products, including those that were found to have lower-than-maximum levels of radiation permitted by the government, would help the public feel more at ease in the decisions they make. We asked radiation experts to come up with the numbers, which we published in the Mainichi's April 5 morning issue.
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As the crisis continued, there came a shift in the focus of concern from radioactive iodine to cesium, which has a longer half-life than the former and was detected in beef and tea leaves. In addition, a growing number of people began to feel that the maximum permissible amounts set by the government were too high. To allay consumers' fears and prevent foods from being rejected by the public merely because of where they had been produced, it is necessary to find ways for individuals to learn how much radiation they have been personally exposed to through food.
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We also looked at the impact of radiation-tainted soil on children. The regulations on outdoor activity issued by the government in late April said that it was permissible for children to be exposed to up to 20 millisieverts of radiation per year -- the same level of radiation at which an area would be designated a "planned evacuation zone." We felt it was too high for children, who are more easily affected by radiation than adults.
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On May 23, we reported on the decontamination efforts taking place in the disaster areas, along with testimony from experts arguing that children's radiation exposure limits should be lowered. Parents of children in Fukushima also protested against the government's numbers, and in August the government revised the maximum permissible exposure to radiation for children down to 1 millisievert per year.
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Many people are unable to evacuate despite fears of radiation exposure because of work and a variety of other reasons.
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While experts all agree that the lower the radiation exposure the better, such generalizations only serve to weigh heavily on the people who must stay in Fukushima. It is crucial that we offer those people who have no choice but to live under conditions of low-level radiation exposure with information that will empower them, including what they can do to cut down on the risk of developing cancer. (By Yoshiko Tamura, Lifestyle News Department)
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Magnitude 7.2 quake hits Turkey...[ 2511 ]
Powerful earthquake strikes poor eastern Turkey
October 23, 2011 -- Updated 1737 GMT (0137 HKT)
At least seven aftershocks rattled the region, one of the nation's poorest. The extent of casualties was not immediately known.
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Some 25 apartment buildings and a student dormitory collapsed in the town of Ercis on the north shore of Lake Van, the Turkish Red Crescent said.
Local rescuers took many wounded people out of the dormitory, the Red Crescent statement said, without saying exactly how many.
A health services building also collapsed, along with part of a hospital, CNN sister network CNN Turk reported. At least two doctors were thought to be in the rubble of the health services building, the network said. The injured were being treated in the hospital's garden.
Official rescue efforts were under way in Ercis, said CNN Turk reporter Sevda Incesu, but residents were also conducting efforts of their own. Ambulances were having trouble getting into town because the roads were littered with rubble, she said.
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Video footage from the scene showed one man freed from the rubble being loaded onto a stretcher in a neck brace and put into an ambulance amid a crush of rescue workers and bystanders.
The Red Crescent called for rescue workers, heavy machinery and drinking water, and set up a crisis desk in the capital Ankara.
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Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said 10 buildings had collapsed in the center of the city of Van, citing local authorities.
Health Minister Recep Akdag said an air ambulance and several helicopters would go to the quake zone.
Television pictures from Van province showed rescuers and members of the public climbing over massive piles of cinder blocks that had been a building before the earthquake hit.
Ambulances and bulldozers were on the scene.
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A seven-story building collapsed on Kazim Karabekir Street in the city of Van, and more buildings were reduced to rubble the village of Tabanli in Van province, the Anatolian news agency said. It was unknown how many people were trapped.
Video from CNN Turk showed the inside of shaking buildings, and people gathering outside on the streets.
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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to arrive in the area later Sunday, his office said.
Israel offered Turkey "any help it may require" after the earthquake, Defense Minister Ehud Barak's office said. Israel and Turkey, once close allies, saw a deterioration in relations in a dispute over an Israeli naval commando raid on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara, in which nine Turkish activists were killed.
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Turkey is "no stranger to having these seismic events," but Sunday's quake is considered major, CNN Meteorologist Reynolds Wolf reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported the quake had a magnitude of 7.3, then revised it down to 7.2.
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The last quake of that magnitude in Turkey -- a 7.2 tremor in Duzce in 1999 -- killed 894 people, the USGS reported. A 7.6 earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, killed more than 17,000 people the same year, according to the USGS.
Sunday's major quake hit at 1:41 p.m. local time and was followed by at least seven aftershocks, American and Turkish monitoring agencies reported.
It took place about 12 miles from Van, the USGS said.
An official Turkish monitoring office reported aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 2.6 to 5.8, all within an hour of the first quake.
The USGS reported a depth of 4.5 miles, or 7.2 kilometers; the center in Turkey said the quake was about 3 miles, or 5 kilometers, deep.
One concern is displacement of water along Lake Van, which could send water gushing into nearby areas, particularly along the west side, Wolf reported.
The European Commission and the British government were among those offering condolences, and the British offered assistance.
"We are greatly saddened by the news of the terrible earthquake that has struck the Van province in southeast Turkey," European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a joint statement. "Our thoughts are with the injured and the families of the victims and we should like to convey our condolences to the people and authorities of Turkey."
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British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement, "Today's earthquake in eastern Turkey has caused immense destruction, resulting in terrible loss of life. I send my deepest condolences to the friends and loved ones of those who have died or been affected. My thoughts are with those who are anxiously awaiting news from the rescue efforts. The UK is ready to provide assistance in line with any request from Turkish authorities. We stand with Turkey at this difficult time."
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In Libya, where leaders of the interim National Transitional Council declared the country liberated Sunday following the death of former leader Moammar Gadhafi, NTC chairman Mustafa Jalil also offered condolences.
Satellite re-enters Earth's atmosphere...[ 2510 ]
German satellite re-enters Earth's atmosphere
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October 23, 2011
The Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT), an x-ray observatory, made its re-entry to the earth's atmosphere between 0145 GMT and 0215 GMT on Sunday, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) said in a statement.
A German satellite the size of a car re-entered the Earth's atmosphere early Sunday, officials said, adding they did not know yet if any debris had hit the Earth.
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"There is currently no confirmation if pieces of debris have reached Earth's surface," the statement added.
According to estimates cited last week, as many as 30 individual pieces weighing a total of 1.7 tonnes could reach the surface of the Earth.
But Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the DLR, said they would have to "wait for data in the next days" to know when and where the debris could fall.
He said they did not currently know how far it was from the Earth.
Last week, DLR officials said ROSAT was expected to return to Earth between October 22 and 23, travelling at a speed of around 28,000 kilometres (17,000 miles) per hour.
Solar radiation, which heats up the Earth's atmosphere, increases the atmospheric drag and makes it hard to estimate the date of re-entry.
As the spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere, the x-ray observatory would break up into pieces, some of which will burn up, they said.
"The largest single fragment will probably be the telescope's mirror, which is very heat resistant," it added.
However, statistically speaking, there is very little danger to humans from space junk, the experts have said. The debris will almost certainly fall in the sea or on an uninhabited piece of land.
During its mission, ROSAT operated at distances of up to 585 kilometres above Earth's surface, but it has lost altitude since its decommissioning, and in June 2011 it was about 327 kilometres above the ground.
A controlled re-entry was not possible at the end of its mission in 1999 because the spacecraft does not have a propulsion system on board, the officials said.
ROSAT was launched in June 1990 to allow researchers to perform an all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope for the first time.
Last month, a bus-sized US satellite that hurtled unpredictably toward Earth crossed over Africa and the northern Atlantic before plunging into the Pacific Ocean off California, NASA said.
There were no sightings or reliable accounts of damage as the six-tonne Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell from the sky.
(c) 2011 AFP
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