Nasa image of the Day, June 29th ..[ 1359 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Ghostly Encounter

The surface of Saturn's moon Dione is rendered in crisp detail against a hazy, ghostly Titan. Visible in this image are hints of atmospheric banding around Titan's north pole. 

 

The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 10, 2010. 

 

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Dione and 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Titan. 

 

Scale in the original image was 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Dione and 16 kilometers (10 miles) on Titan. The image has been magnified by a factor of 1.5 and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility. 

 

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Τρίτη, 29 Ιούνιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Russia : Iran to stop uranium enrichment.. [ 1358 ]

   Russian FM urges Iran to stop uranium enrichment    

TREND///29.06.2010 16:52

 

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday expressed hoped that Iran could stop its uranium enrichment and respond constructively to the fuel swap deal brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

  
At a Jerusalem news conference after holding talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Lavrov recalled the proposal of Russia, the United States and France to hold an IAEA meeting with Iranian experts to address issues of supply of fuel for Tehran's research reactor, according to reports from Russian news agencies, Xinhua reported.
  
The Russian diplomat stressed that such a meeting was planned "with the understanding that the 20 percent uranium enrichment will stop."
  
"I hope Iran will respond constructively as it will help settle the situation, which raises concerns," Lavrov said.
  
He also reiterated Russia's firm adherence to the latest UN Security Council resolution on Iran over the supply of S-300 air defense systems.
  
"Russia strictly obeys all of the Security Council's resolutions. In practice, such resolutions are implemented through decrees issued by the president of the Russian Federation," Lavrov said.
  
"The decree will make it absolutely clear which types of weapons fall under the recently adopted resolution," he added.
  
Iran struck a deal to buy S-300 systems in 2007, but Russia has delayed delivery of the anti-aircraft missiles.
  
The S-300 air defense system is an advanced mobile system that can shoot down aircraft and cruise missiles from up to 150 km away. The United States and Israel oppose the sale of the missiles to Iran.
  
Earlier this month, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

 

Monitoring of nuclear material trafficking..[ 1357 ]

Medvedev calls for strict monitoring of nuclear material trafficking

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

14:12 -  29/06/2010

© RIA Novosti. Vladimir Rodionov

MOSCOW, June 29 (RIA Novosti)Russian President Dmitry Medvedev believes that strict monitoring of nuclear material trafficking and maintaining high security standards in the nuclear sphere is crucial for modern society.

"At this stage, creating effective mechanisms that rule out the unauthorized acquisition of nuclear materials and technologies has special importance. This approach was endorsed at the recent Nuclear Security Summit and NPT Review Conference," Medvedev said in a letter to a plenary session of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.

"The key issues of nuclear nonproliferation and finding the best mechanisms for combating the threat of nuclear terrorism are on the agenda of your meeting. Only coordinated measures can solve these global problems," the letter said.

Medvedev said that the Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism has grown stronger over the past year and is now "firmly on the path towards practical implementation."
"We expect that the number of participants who share common goals will continue to grow steadily. Russia is committed to ... continuing work on enhancing and strengthening the global nuclear nonproliferation regime," the president said.

Rescuers search through mud for signs of life ..[ 1356 ]

Landslide in China: rescuers search through mud for signs of life in Dazhai village in Guizhou province

Hope of finding survivors is diminishing as rescuers use heavy machinery including bulldozers to search for at least 107 people trapped under a landslide in rain-hit southwestern China. 

More than 100,000 cubic metres of mud and rocks, the equivalent of 40 Olympic-size swimming pools, has fallen on the houses, the official People's Daily newspaper said

Picture: AP

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Fire north of Flagstaff, Arizona[... 1355 ]

Schultz Fire North of Flagstaff, AZ

 

(586 KB, JPEG) 

The Schultz Fire had burned an estimated 8,800 acres of forest north of Flagstaff, Arizona, as of June 22, 2010, and it remained totally out of control. Evacuations were in effect in the vicinity, but no structures had yet been lost according to the interagency Incident Information System (Inciweb) Website.
This image of the fire was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on June 21. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fire are outlined in red, and smoke drifts far to the northeast over the portion of the Colorado Plateau known as the Painted Desert.
The blaze looks like two separate fires, but an infrared-enhanced view shows a continuous burn scar (brick red color), with significant activity on both the northern and southern parts of the perimeter.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

Instrument: Aqua - MODIS