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Greetings from Pennsylvania. That’s where I am this week, leading a group of Nicholas School colleagues on an “eco-fact-finding” trip. Our objective: to learn more about shale gas drilling, including the tandem two-step of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (collectively known as fracking ) that make it all possible. Here’s a bit of what we’ve seen so far. Our Host
A Trip to Fracking Land
"Alien" Particles Found Invading Our Solar System—A First
For the first time, a NASA spacecraft has directly observed "alien" particles that came from beyond our solar system , astronomers announced today. The discovery not only gives us a glimpse of what exists in the so-called interstellar medium—the matter between stars—but also offers clues to the anatomy of our local galactic neighborhood. Orbiting Earth some 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) away, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft was able to snag samples of hydrogen, oxygen, and neon that came from interstellar space. "It's exciting to be able to have these first observations of alien matter—stuff that didn't come from our sun or the planets, but came from the outside of our solar system, from other parts of the galaxy," David McComas , team leader for the IBEX program, said during a NASA news conference Tuesday. "We think these are really important measurements, because these elements are the fundamental building blocks of stars, planets, and people."
October 15, 2009 Stevie Wonder may have been on to something when he sang about a ribbon in the sky . In a discovery that took astronomers by surprise, the first full-sky map of the solar system 's edge—more than 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away—has revealed a bright "ribbon" of atoms called ENAs.
Mystery Space "Ribbon" Found at Solar System's Edge
How the Mariana Trench Became Earth's Deepest Point
Richard A. Lovett James Cameron made headlines last month by successfully divi ng 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in a one-person submersible called the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER . (See " Cameron Exclusive: After Record Dive, Why Go Back to Mariana Trench?" )
{*style:<b>A mushroom of cooled plasma popped like a pimple and rained onto the surface of the sun yesterday—shooting perhaps the largest amount of solar material into space ever seen, scientists say. </b>*} ( Watch a video of the solar flare. ) The solar flare—an unusually bright spot on the sun—wasn't surprising as a "moderate" event.
Solar Flare Sparks Biggest Eruption Ever Seen on Sun
Ozone layer is recovering, says UN
The ozone layer is regenerating, and could be back up to strength by the middle of the century, according to a UN report. It concludes that international efforts such as the Montreal Protocol are successfully protecting the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from harmful levels of ultraviolet rays. The report, titled Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2010 , was written and reviewed by around 300 scientists and is the first comprehensive update in four years. The Montreal Protocol, it says, is working. "It has protected the stratospheric ozone layer from much higher levels of depletion by phasing out production and consumption of ozone depleting substances," says the report. Almost 100 substances once used in refrigerators, aerosols and other products have been phased out.Nevada to consider legalizing self-driving cars
Google's pushing for driverless cars to be made legal in Nevada. It's hired lobbyist David Goldwater to promote two bills which should come to a vote by the end of June. One amends existing electric vehicle law to allow the use of driverless cars; the other, rather weirdly, would allow such cars' 'drivers' to text.
Parallel world hidden inside Earth
It seems that scientists find more and more evidence to prove the existence of parallel worlds. Physicists at Stanford University managed to calculate the hypothetical number of universes that were formed as a result of the Big Bang. According to them, the Big Bang created 10 1016 universes.