Environment
Lake Vostok: “Admit it, it sounds just like a thousand horror-movie setups.”
That was the Professor’s not entirely inaccurate comment this time last year, when a Russian team came up just short in their attempt to reach Lake Vostok - the largest sub-glacial freshwater lake on Earth. The project to drill down to the lake, which covers 16 square kilometres and has been sealed under approximately 3,750m of ice in the Antarctic [...] more »
“Opportunity on Mars – 8 years and counting!”
Nasa’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time, three weeks after its rover twin, Spirit, had landed halfway around the planet. Opportunity completed its three-month prime mission in April that year, everything else has been bonus, extended missions. Spirit is no longer with us. But Opportunity carries [...] more »
“Recently the two Governments agreed to address issues relating to both Lough Foyle and Carlingford Lough in the round”
Here’s something that could develop into something quite interesting. It follows on from the “Memorandum of Understanding reached by the two Governments with the support of the Northern Ireland Executive… on marine jurisdictional issues.” As I said then If you were wondering why the lines stop at the entrances to the respective Loughs, that would be [...] more »
Strangford Lough: “It is not as if the two departments did not know what needed to be done.”
It’s worth stating at the beginning that the European Commission haven’t, yet, imposed a fine for the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to protect and restore a special habitat, of [protected species] horse mussel beds, in Strangford Lough – a designated Special Area of Conservation, an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a Ramsar (protected wetland) site. But, BBC [...] more »
Phobos-Grunt: “Re-entry is now imminent”
The BBC’s spaceman, Jonathan Amos, reports on the imminent re-entry of the 13-tonne failed Russian Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt. Included in that 13-tonnes are more than 10 tonnes of fuel which is expected to explode when the aluminium storage tanks rupture during re-entry. From the BBC report The Russian space agency says little of the probe will [...] more »
ISS Commander: “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space”
Having, unexpectedly, survived its solar close encounter, Comet Lovejoy is providing some spectacular views for early morning observers in the southern hemisphere. Spaceweather has a growing collection of images. But the most spectacular view has to have been the one captured by the crew of the International Space Station (ISS). Wow! [Video courtesy of the Image [...] more »
Sleigh Ride over the Red Planet
A short seasonal diversion from JPLnews, using images of the real landscapes of Mars taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. more »
Comet Lovejoy is still with us!
Rumours of the demise of Kreutz sungrazing Comet Lovejoy may have been greatly exaggarated. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught Comet Lovejoy emerging from its scorching close encounter with the sun. [Video Credit: NASA SDO] As the Science at Nasa press release notes Comet Lovejoy was discovered on Dec. 2, 2011, by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy of [...] more »
“Without prejudice to the negotiation of territorial sea boundaries…”
The Northern Ireland Energy Minister, the DUP’s Arlene Foster, has welcomed the “announcement by The Crown Estate of two parallel Leasing Rounds for offshore wind and tidal stream development as new sources of renewable energy for Northern Ireland.” The Crown Estate website has more details here. From the Minister’s press release Arlene Foster said: “Today’s [...] more »
Kepler-22b: “This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin”
By the time its last catalogue of exoplanet candidates was released in February, Nasa’s Kepler space observatory, launched in March 2009, first light in April 2009, had identified 1,235 planetary candidates – and 54 candidates within the habitable zone. The Kepler team have now identified 2,326 planet candidates – of those, 207 are approximately Earth-size, 680 are super Earth-size, [...] more »
“Maybe Picasso did not paint any pictures at all, at least not the Mona Lisa.”
As the Guardian’s Ian Sample notes from the science desk The runup to Christmas looks exciting for the Large Hadron Collider at Cern near Geneva. Staff at the laboratory have arranged a special seminar on Tuesday 13 December at which the latest results in the search for the Higgs boson will be made public. The presentation [...] more »
Curiosity heads to Mars
Nasa’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Centre earlier today on an Atlas 5 rocket at the start of its eight and a half month journey to Mars. With its massive 900kg rover, Curiosity, it’s being billed as “the biggest and best Mars mission yet.” Mike Meyer is the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration effort: [...] more »
What’s all this #fracking nonsense then Arlene?
Mention money and land and someone, almost anyone, in the DUP and some people get very excited. But all that’s happened is that 54 acres of her husband’s farm has been included in the vast area in which permission for gas exploration may be sought: As previously noted by Andy, the area under consideration is [...] more »
Ulster Wildlife Trust: “we are now totally cynical as to whether government ever intended to meet its obligations”
The BBC NI environment correspondent, Mike McKimm, has an update on his August 2010 report on the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to protect and restore a special habitat, of [protected species] horse mussel beds, in Strangford Lough – a designated Special Area of Conservation, an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a Ramsar (protected wetland) site. And [...] more »
Chaos on Europa
And that could be a good thing. [Image credit: Nasa/JPL. Image reprocessed by Ted Stryk]. As a BBC report notes, Nasa scientists have published their latest thinking on the chaos terrains of Jovian satellite Europa. [All hail our friend and lord, Jupiter! - Ed] *ahem*. It suggests that the “chaos terrains form above liquid water lenses perched [...] more »
“An aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will make a safe, close flyby of Earth…”
If the calculations are correct, the 400m-wide asteroid 2005 YU55 will make a safe, close flyby of Earth at around half past eleven tonight (11.28pm GMT). [If?! - Ed] If not, we’ll have a wondrous new scar to boast about! Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 obtained on Nov. 7, 2011, at 11:45 a.m. PST (2:45 p.m. [...] more »
Wow, indeed.
Via Tom Chivers at the Telegraph blog. [Video courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center] This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken October 18, 2011 from 07:09:06 to 07:27:42 GMT, on a pass from just [...] more »
NI Auditor General: “This pattern has continued in 2010-11.”
Last year the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland, Kieran Donnelly, qualified “a larger number of [NI Executive department's] accounts than usual” and highlighted his concern “that there [were] significant problems within the registered housing association sector in Northern Ireland.” As the NIAO press release notes, “This pattern has continued in 2010-11”. Six out of the nineteen [...] more »
Belfast City Airport passenger limit reinstated
Having launched a consultation on the 2 million passenger seats per 12 month restriction on Belfast City Airport in June last year, the then Northern Ireland Environment Minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots, announced in December 2010 Environment Minister Edwin Poots today announced his decision to remove the seats for sale restriction at George Best Belfast City Airport [...] more »
“Are the Scots more the Greeks or Germans? I couldn’t possibly say.”
“It’s starting”, is it? [Whatever 'it' is - Ed]. The Guardian’s Michael White spots a flaw in Alex Salmond’s cunning plan. [Does it involve turnips? - Ed] Neeps. From the Guardian Politics Blog The SNP and the Tory Eurosceptics have much in common – and I don’t mean that as a compliment, decent people though [...] more »
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Books
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
Stay out of Libya: counterinsurgency doesn’t work
A moment of some significance in journalism perhaps, as the New York Times reviews the current talked about book, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing West. The author is no bleeding heart but a former assistant Defense Secretary from the Reagan era who stomped his way round the Afghan [...] read our review »
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Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in [...] read our review »
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