Environment – Page 6 – Slugger O'Toole

Phobos-Grunt: “Re-entry is now imminent”

Pete Baker on January 15, 2012, 4:49 pm

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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 survive to the surface. It calculates no more than 200kg in maybe 20-30 fragments. Precisely where on the Earth’s surface – and when – this …

ISS Commander: “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space”

Pete Baker on December 23, 2011, 7:53 pm

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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 Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center] Usually they make do with stunning views of aurorae… Here’s ISS Commander Dan Burbank speaking to WDIV-TV …

Sleigh Ride over the Red Planet

Pete Baker on December 22, 2011, 3:19 pm

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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. Pete Baker

Comet Lovejoy is still with us!

Pete Baker on December 17, 2011, 5:58 pm

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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 Australia. Researchers quickly realized that the new find was a member of the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets. Named after the German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, …

“Without prejudice to the negotiation of territorial sea boundaries…”

Pete Baker on December 15, 2011, 3:51 pm

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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 announcement by The Crown Estate opens up new Leasing Rounds in Northern Ireland waters. This marks a major step forward in the growth of our …

Kepler-22b: “This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin”

Pete Baker on December 5, 2011, 7:43 pm

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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, 1,181 are Neptune-size, 203 are Jupiter-size and 55 are larger than Jupiter. And there are now 48 planet candidates in their star’s habitable zone There …

“Maybe Picasso did not paint any pictures at all, at least not the Mona Lisa.”

Pete Baker on December 4, 2011, 3:52 pm

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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 is due to happen directly after the lab’s scientific policy committee has convened one of its regular meetings behind closed doors. So what can we …

Curiosity heads to Mars

Pete Baker on November 26, 2011, 6:14 pm

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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: “MSL plays a central role in a series of missions of looking at Mars and determining whether or not it has the potential for life. …

What’s all this #fracking nonsense then Arlene?

Mick Fealty on November 25, 2011, 12:42 pm

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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 potentially huge: “the North West Ireland Carboniferous Basin in counties Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan, Donegal and Fermanagh.” I’ve looked at what it means before but it’s …

Ulster Wildlife Trust: “we are now totally cynical as to whether government ever intended to meet its obligations”

Pete Baker on November 19, 2011, 4:38 pm

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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 it’s not good news. Eight years after first drawing attention to the problem, and six years after a formal written warning was issued from the European Commission, the …

Chaos on Europa

Pete Baker on November 17, 2011, 4:40 pm

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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 within the ice shell as shallow as 3 kilometres”. Here’s a cross-section view through the surface of Europa showing the suspected “Great Lake.” [Image credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel …

“An aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will make a safe, close flyby of Earth…”

Pete Baker on November 8, 2011, 3:03 pm

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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. EST/1945 UTC), when the asteroid was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] And with its …

Wow, indeed.

Pete Baker on October 28, 2011, 11:55 am

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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 south of Alaska to eastern Cuba. The camera used for this imagery was north-facing, so the Aurora Borealis stay visible throughout the video. Lights from …

NI Auditor General: “This pattern has continued in 2010-11.”

Pete Baker on October 25, 2011, 4:24 pm

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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 NI Executive departmental resource accounts have received qualified audit opinions. The full report is available here. BBC NI business correspondent, Kevin Magee, notes what the report has …

Belfast City Airport passenger limit reinstated

Pete Baker on October 25, 2011, 3:03 pm

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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 (GBBCA). Mr Poots explained: “Having given the matter careful consideration and taken into account the issues raised in response to the consultation, I have decided …

“Are the Scots more the Greeks or Germans? I couldn’t possibly say.”

Pete Baker on October 24, 2011, 1:18 pm

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“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 so many of them are. The obvious tactic they currently share, apart from national chauvinism as a panacea for deeper problems, is the three-choice referendum …

“one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain”

Pete Baker on October 19, 2011, 2:38 pm

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The discovery of an intact Viking boat burial on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula – by the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project, a team led by experts from the universities of Manchester and Leicester, CFA Archaeology Ltd and Archaeology Scotland – has generated plenty of coverage. Believed to be from the 10th Century, it’s the first fully intact Viking boat burial site to be excavated on the British mainland. As the BBC report notes The term “fully-intact”, used to describe the find, means the remains …

“humanity’s first overland expedition on another planet..” – redux

Pete Baker on October 13, 2011, 2:45 pm

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[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University.] Having completed what once “seemed like a crazy idea”, Nasa have released a video documenting the journey of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater. A “three-year trek that totaled about 13 miles (21 kilometers) across a Martian plain pocked with smaller craters.” Opportunity arrived on Mars in January 2004 and completed its three-month prime mission in April that year. The rest have been bonus, extended missions. The video is compiled from 309 images taken at …

ALMA opens its eyes

Pete Baker on October 3, 2011, 6:26 pm

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As the BBC report, and see here also, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have released the first image obtained by their new telescope, the Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) – even though the array isn’t expected to be completed until 2013. It’s the focus of the latest ESOcast 36 – ALMA opens its eyes. And here’s that image, of the colliding spiral Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039). [Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)] A side-by-side comparison with a Very Large Telescope (VLT) image of …

Odyssey Marine’s “Irish project”

Pete Baker on September 28, 2011, 5:05 pm

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The Irish Times’ marine correspondent, Lorna Siggins, notes an interesting addendum to the US company Odyssey Marine Exploration’s confirmation of the site of the SS Gairsoppa – and, potentially, 200 tonnes of silver. From the Irish Times report THE US marine exploration company which has located a British wartime shipwreck with £150 million worth of silver in the Atlantic has also been surveying southwest Irish waters where there are a number of “commodity” wrecks. The Naval Service has confirmed that …