Interactive 3D model of Solar System Planets and Night Sky Scientists Now Know: We're From Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy! Scientists Now Know: We're Not From Here! Summary & comments by Dan Eden for Viewzone "This first full-sky map of Sagittarius shows its extensive interaction with the Milky Way," Majewski said. "Both stars and star clusters now in the outer parts of the Milky Way have been 'stolen' from Sagittarius as the gravitational forces of the Milky Way nibbled away at its dwarf companion. The study's map of M giants depicts 2 billion years of Sagittarius stripping by the Milky Way, and suggests that Sagittarius has reached a critical phase in what had been a slow dance of death. "After slow, continuous gnawing by the Milky Way, Sagittarius has been whittled down to the point that it cannot hold itself together much longer," said 2MASS Science Team member and study co-author Martin Weinberg of the University of Massachusetts. Does this mean we are at a unique moment in the life of our galaxy? Implications in Global Warming? Other changes happening in our system * A growth of dark spots on Pluto. Dave
Travel Rant: On the Importance of Gratitude I’m currently settled into the lovely city of Vientiane, Laos for the Christmas holidays. I love it here – everything from the colonial architecture, the garishly colored temples, the wonderful food and the lovely, friendly Laos people. It has been a bit of an adjustment coming from Japan where you rarely see a foreigner and people move very quickly to this place that is absolutely brimming with Western tourists and where everyone takes their time. After the 25th we’ll be heading out to more rural areas of the country, in an attempt to get away from the huge number of tourists. A few nights ago we were sitting outside at a beautiful beer and food garden enjoying some cold BeerLaos. Some people carry an energy with them that is immediately negative. “Is it going to be good? I could see her plate and it was a very respectable portion of rice with vegetables, prawns and chicken. The boy, looking a bit distressed now, went to take her plate back to the kitchen.
Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever--so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe. The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it's turning out to be pretty lush. Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water--20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth--Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over--20,000 times over. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. The new cloud of water is enough to supply 28 galaxies with water.
Dark alien planet discovered by NASA | MNN - Mother Nature Network - StumbleUpon An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy. The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Draco. The researchers found this gas giant reflects less than 1 percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it darker than any planet or moon seen up to now. [The Strangest Alien Planets] "It's just ridiculous how dark this planet is, how alien it is compared to anything we have in our solar system," study lead-author David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told SPACE.com. "However, it's not completely pitch black," co-author David Spiegel of Princeton University said in a statement. "It's a mystery as to what's causing it to be so dark," Kipping said. This article was reprinted with permission from SPACE.com.
10 places that don’t exist (but should) - travel tips and articles - L... We've all read a book or watched a movie and wished the places it transported us to were real. Some of the most enduring destinations are fictional. Well, not completely. Some were inspired by real places that resonated with their authors. So, here are my top mythical locations. 10. The home of Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger and friends, the lush and charming Hundred Acre Wood is the literary soul mate of Ashdown Forest in Sussex. 9. 8. The mythical city of gold has come to represent things opulent or unattainable. 7. Rumour has it only children can visit Neverland, but if you think happy thoughts you might just find your way to the famous home of Peter Pan, Captain Hook and the Lost Boys. 6. Who wouldn’t like to travel via rabbit hole? 5. Arthurian scholar Norris J. 4. 3. There one minute, gone the next, illusive, mist-shrouded Brigadoon is how many travellers like to imagine Scotland. 2. Surrounded by desert on all sides, Frank L. 1. Runners Up: Fantasia
Bellatrix Orionis - Views from the edge of the Universe | Bellatrix Orionis The Unsolved Mystery of Saturn's Hexagon -4 Times the Size of Earth "Cassini is indebted to Voyager for its many fascinating discoveries and for pavingthe way for Cassini," says Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL, who started her career working on Voyager from 1977 to 1989. "On Cassini, we still compare our data to Voyager's and proudly build on Voyager's heritage." But the Voyager Mission left a few mysteries that Cassini has not yet solved. One of the most perplexing mysteries is Saturn's hexagpn. 'Now that we can see undulations and circular features instead of blobs in the hexagon, we can start trying to solve some of the unanswered questions about one of the most bizarre things we've ever seen in the solar system, said Kevin Baines, Atmospheric scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after viewing Cassini images in 2009. After the sunlight faded, darkness shrouded the north pole for 15 years. The hexagon was originally discovered in images taken by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s.
Deadly Leopard Seal Tries to Feed Live Penguins to Photographer (Video) :... "Bloody Hell! That's the biggest leopard seal I've ever seen!" Leopard seals are pretty scary predators, especially if you're a penguin. But they can be friendly to other leopard seals, which is something that photographer Paul Nicklen learned during one of his trips to Antarctica. He was taking underwater photos when a leopard seal started feeding him penguins, starting with live ones, which were released close to him (to see if he would catch them), and ending with half-chewed dead ones. One theory is that the leopard seal saw his reflection in the lens of the camera and thought that Nicklen was a fellow predator, but an awkward one in need of some help. The Seal Saw Him as a Useless Predator Here's is a video of Nicklen explaining what happened, with many incredible photos. For more photos by Paul Nicklen, check out his website. See also: Beijing Zoo Puts their Animals on the Menu
Saturn Moon Has Oxygen Atmosphere An oxygen atmosphere has been found on Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, astronomers announced Thursday—but don't hold your breath for colonization opportunities. For one thing, the 932-mile-wide (1,500-kilometer-wide), ice-covered moon is more than 932 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. For another, the average surface temperature is -292 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius). And at less than 62 miles (100 kilometers) thick, the newfound oxygen layer is so thin that, at Earthlike temperatures and pressure, Rhea's entire atmosphere would fit in a single midsize building. Still, the discovery implies that worlds with oxygen-filled air may not be so unusual in the cosmos. At about 327,000 miles (527,000 kilometers) from Saturn, Rhea orbits inside the planet's magnetic field. The Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Galileo probe found in 1995 that a similar process creates tenuous oxygen atmospheres on Jupiter's ice moons Europa and Ganymede.