The Ruins of Detroit – - PlogPlog Photo Blog Posted Feb 07, 2011 Share This Gallery inShare850 Up and down Detroit’s streets, buildings stand abandoned and in ruin. Cosmic smashup predicted, but Earth will survive WASHINGTON (AP) — Don't worry about when the world as we know it might end. NASA has calculated that our entire Milky Way galaxy will crash into a neighboring galaxy with a direct head-on hit — in 4 billion years. Astronomers in a NASA news conference Thursday said that years of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope provide grisly details of a long-anticipated galactic smashup. Astronomers had seen the Andromeda galaxy coming at us, but thought there was a chance that its sideways motion would make it miss or graze the Milky Way. Hubble readings now indicate that's not the case. "This is pretty violent as things go in the universe," said Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore that operates Hubble.
Squid Lose Arms to Escape Predators Much like lizards that ditch their tails in a tussle, some deep-sea squid can sacrifice their glowing arms to distract enemies and swim to safety. Scientists observed this defense mechanism first-hand in the foot-long octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron) off the coast of California. "If a predator is trying to attack them, they may dig the hooks on their arms into the predator's skin," said University of Rhode Island researcher Stephanie Bush. "Then the squid jets away and leaves its arm tips stuck to the predator. The wriggling, bioluminescing arms might give the predator pause enough to allow the squid to get away." Global Warming Fight Could Turn Skies Brighter, Whiter If scientists were to follow through with a sun-blocking idea for cooling the planet, they may also brighten up your day — literally. New research found that blocking just 2 percent of the sun 's light from hitting our planet, a type of solar geoengineering to combat man-made global warming , would make the skies three to five times brighter and whiter. Another study, also out this week, suggests that in addition to sky-brightening, such sunlight-reducing geoengineering would disrupt global and regional rainfall patterns. A type of solar geoengineering , in which sun-scattering aerosols are shot into the atmosphere, mimics a process caused by large volcanic eruptions ; such volcanic blasts shoot lots of small particles into the stratosphere that scatter incoming solar energy away from Earth's surface. The catch, however, is that these particles drop out of the skies within a couple of years; with them go their cooling abilities. [ Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas ]
Giant Tropical Lake Found on Saturn Moon Titan An oasis of liquid methane has unexpectedly been discovered amid the tropical dunes of Saturn's moon Titan, researchers say. This lake in the otherwise dry tropics of Titan hints that subterranean channels of liquid methane might feed it from below, scientists added. Titan has clouds, rain and lakes, like Earth, but these are composed of methane rather than water. However, methane lakes were seen only at Titan's poles until now — its tropics around the equator were apparently home to dune fields instead. Now near-infrared pictures of Titan from the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn collected since 2004 suggest a vast methane lake exists on the surface in the moon's tropics, one about 925 square miles (2,400 square kilometers) large and at least three feet (1 meter) deep. A number of models of methane's behavior on Titan convincingly show that lakes are not stable at the moon's tropical latitudes.
Near-Space Tourism Balloon Runs Test Launch A new tourist experience could be provided within five years by a huge balloon that offers stunning views of the horizon and the blackness of space. The designer tested the launch procedure last month, using a smaller version of the helium balloon and its passenger pod. The May 29 test was halted when a wind gust damaged the balloon's envelope. The video description of the launch test said a repeat test of the balloon, designed by the Spanish company Zero 2 Infinity, is "scheduled soon." The "bloon," as the company calls it, would carry a pressurized pod for two pilots and four passengers as high as 22 miles (36 kilometers) up.
Franken-Physics: Atoms Split in Two & Put Back Together Physicists have just upped their ante: Not only have they split atoms but, even trickier, they've put them back together. Their secret? Quantum physics. Why We Must Flee the Planet: The Geometry of Earth is All Wrong Stephen Hawking is best known for thinking about time, space, and those teratoid trash mashers known as black holes. But in a recent talk in Hong Kong, the famous physicist digressed from his usual subject matter to tell the audience that they'd better get off the island, and he didn't mean Kowloon. Instead, the Cambridge don was urging the crowd to get off the whole, gosh-darn planet. Hawking was hawking space colonization.
Interstellar Gas Molecule Mystery Revealed Scientists have untangled the structure of an elusive space molecule that may help astronomers better understand the vast clouds of interstellar gas across our Milky Way galaxy. Unable to directly detect the coldest clouds of the most plentiful molecule in the universe, astronomers must rely on its interactions to find it. The search should become easier with an improved understanding of the compound H2-CO, frequently used as a tracer chemical. After obtaining a very accurate reading of the most plentiful variety of this compound, an international team of scientists was able to map its distribution across space.
NASA's Juno Mission to Probe Jupiter's Biggest Secrets ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A NASA probe that is traveling through space on its way to Jupiter is expected to help astronomers unlock mysteries about the largest planet in our solar system when it arrives there in 2016. NASA's Juno mission was launched in August 2011 to study how Jupiter formed and evolved. After a five-year journey, the spacecraft is expected to arrive at the gas giant planet in August 2016. Jupiter has long intrigued astronomers, from the planet's distinct surface features and complex weather systems to its mysterious origin and evolution, said Fran Bagenal, a professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and a co-investigator on the Juno mission. "People have been looking at this exterior since the time of Galileo," she said.
Moondust: Nanoparticles in Lunar Soil May Solve Mystery The moon has never had all that much. It doesn't have atmosphere, it doesn't have water and it sure doesn't have life. What it does have, though, is dirt — lots and lots of dirt — and it's some of the coolest stuff you ever saw. Now it's even cooler, thanks to the discovery this week of a wholly unexpected ingredient stirred into the lunar mix. Icy Antarctica Once Ringed With Carpet of Lush Flora The few plants that live in Antarctica today are hardy hangers-on, growing just a few weeks out of the year and surviving poor soil, lack of rain and very little sunlight. But long ago, some parts of Antarctica were almost lush. New research finds that between about 15 million and 20 million years ago, plant life thrived on the coasts of the southernmost continent. Ancient pollen samples suggest that the landscape was a bit like today's Chilean Andes: grassy tundra dotted with small trees.
Misbehaving Particles Poke Holes in Reigning Physics Theory The reigning theory of particle physics may be flawed, according to new evidence that a subatomic particle decays in a certain way more often than it should, scientists announced. This theory, called the Standard Model, is the best handbook scientists have to describe the tiny bits of matter that make up the universe. But many physicists suspect the Standard Model has some holes in it, and findings like this may point to where those holes are hiding. Inside the BaBar experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., researchers observe collisions between electrons and their antimatter partners, positrons (scientists think all matter particles have antimatter counterparts with equal mass but opposite charge). When these particles collide, they explode into energy that converts into new particles.